The Helm's Bakery Heist and Jimmy's Stinking Suprise!

The long day...continued: Saturday 1:00-2:00pm (The Day the Sun Stood Still)

Harding avenue was littered with people since the siege of the devil iguana that had embedded itself into the Tripp family wall furnace without formal invitation (last blog post). This jumble of activity was about typical for a nice September Saturday afternoon on our street. As the hordes headed back across the street towards my house ("Hotel  Crazy" blog 7-26-13), the skinny kid around the corner, Johnny Gillemot... AKA Gillamonster... provided the next bit of entertainment that my brothers managed to leverage into the "Helms Bakery Heist" of 1966. 

Gillamonster came barreling down our short street in his momma's '63 Nova. Never mind that fact that he only had his learner's permit. Not having a driver's license didn't stop people from driving back then, but he had a crowd and was determined to make the most of it.

Hoping to show-off, Gillamonster pulled right up in front of our house, put the Chevy Nova in neutral, revved the motor as high as he could and with the accelerator pedal stomped to the floor he jammed it into drive. He intended to lay rubber all the way down the street (did you see that I put in the word, "intended").

Rookie move! Instead of  the hairy burnout and squealing tires and black tread marks and tire smoke  - all we heard was the loudest clunk of metal cracking and snapping and clanking this side of the Titanic hitting the iceberg. 

Crack!
                                                      ...went the drive-shaft as it blew up the universal joint at the rear differential. The drive-shaft did a couple clanking revolutions before the front yoke slipped out of the spleen and shot out from behind the car like a missile from a mortar-launcher. Traumatized and humiliated, the Gillamonster would have to explain to his mom about his ill-fated "Joy-Ride" in her stolen Chevy Nova that now laid incapacitated in the middle of Harding Avenue.

Since my oldest brother, "Gear-Head" Gustav was there, he decided that he would have some sympathy on the embarrassed teenager and cannibalize one of the cars in our fleet of broken down vehicles we had parked down at the corner - (You know the ones dad made us move every Wednesday and Thursday for street cleaning - see blog post 7-3-13).

While the car was stranded, it was just too much temptation for the rest of the idle Wolf Pack. Mrs. Gillemot's broken down Nova provided the perfect opportunity for prank on a grand scale. They hoped to stage an accident as a diversion and grabbed me for their latest scheme. This time, however, I put up a struggle since I had served my time in the diaper-pail-of-death under Edna's old Buick (blog post 6-5-13). "Pick me. Pick me. Pick me" Gherhing the Great begged, jumping up and down - waving his hand in the air like he was in school, desperately wanting to be part of the staged pandemonium.

While Gustav went to work, Gherhing the Great was scooted under the front wheel of the disabled Nova. Totally getting into it he volunteered to let the boys tear his shirt open as they spread ketchup over his chest and around his head. Mr. and Mrs. Steadman looked through the slats in the blinds and shook their heads in utter disgust. 

That is when I heard the familiar chime of Herbie's Helms Bakery Truck. The boys scattered and hid behind cars and trees and bushes and our busy block suddenly looked desolate like something right out of the

Twilight Zone  

Playing along, the Gillamonster slumped over the steering wheel of his mom's car with ketchup on his forehead and with some dribbling from his mouth as though he was unconsciousness from the fatal atrocity. 

Herbie wheeled his Helm's Bakery truck behind the accident scene and vaulted himself to aid the young bleeding victim which laid contorted under the front fender of the car. 

Back in those days... right down Venice Blvd was the World Famous Helms Bakery.  They had fleets of delivery trucks that delivered bread, donuts and pastries right to your front door.

On the top shelf were the cream-filled eclairs...we never got to have the cream puffs because they were just too expensive -  forget expensive, they cost money! Oh, you can bet the Blasers and the Lennons had Helms donuts and stuff like that, but not us... not until today!

Just like in the good old days of the Wild West we staged a holdup. As Herbie examined the dead body of Gherhing the Great, the boys silently slithered out of their hiding spots and slipped into the Helm's delivery truck  

Chewbacca and Donny and Tom and Kleghorn and Puke-Breath cleared out the exclusive top shelf of the sweet, cold-goodness of cream-filled eclairs and disappeared just as fast as they had appeared. 

Herbie ran to the Steadmans to use the phone to call the police. Knocking on the door he explained to Mr. Steadman his urgency and when he turned around and pointed to the street Gherhing the Great and Gillamonster had both disappeared. Mr. Steadman looked at him and said, "It's no wonder lions eat their young." Thinking it was just a juvenile prank Herbie, without checking his inventory got in his truck and sped away from Harding avenue. 
 
Gustav managed to get Gillamonster back on the road - with Mrs. Gillemot "none-the-wiser."

Like worms that crawl in and out of dead pirates bones...the Wolf Pack oozed into the holes where bricks were missing in the foundation of our house into the dark clubhouse in the basement. It was there they shared the stolen booty, with Gherhing the Great who got to have a cream-filled eclair all to himself  for payment. Gherhing gave me one measly  bite as we headed to the fort to investigate the damage from earlier when Puke-Breath was hurdled on top by Chewbacca the moment he discovered the rattlesnake in his pants (blog post 7-29-13). 

Before we even pulled the plywood off the top we could smell the foul surprise that Jimmy, the booger-slurper, had left inside earlier. He had pooped in the corner that Tommy and I, pretending, said was the bathroom.  GROSS! I heaved of course...and made Gherhing shovel a foot of dirt inside the entire thing before I could even get close enough to declare it condemned, tear the thing down and fill it in. Hearing laughter we looked up to see the older boys leaping out of the third story window and sliding down the "fire escape" pole with renewed fervor. 

Gherhing had not been down the pole yet and wanted to get into the action. Running into the house, behind the continuous steam of boys who were making their way up the three flight of stairs...THAT IS WHEN I SPOTTED THEIR MOTIVATION. Jerry "TT" had come over for a visit and they had intended on driving him bonkers (blogpost 7-26-13). 

Their plan worked, but at my expense!  Next time "Fire Pole Terrorism" and getting trapped by Jerry!
 
Below is a little video bit of history about Helms Bakery by a very good friend of mine, Victor Leon, of Lion's Automotive in Torrance California.  

John Gillemot served our country in Viet Nam - was exposed to "Agent Orange" and had a rough go at things, but has recently had a major turn around and it doing great.

Thank you Gillamonster for serving our country! 



 

CHEWBACCA and The Template of Doom

For all of you around the world who are joining Markie D's journey through adolescence, you can see that this is much more than the iconic, How I survived Catholic School...but rather, how this poor little guy survived at all.
              Thank you for joining me!
These 100% true stories take place in the seed bed of the tumultuous 60's cultural revolution in America.  My mother-in-law warned me, "Markie D, aren't you afraid of what people in other countries might think of America?" My reaction is, "They might actually want to know what was taking place over here at this time in history!" 

The year is 1966, John Lennon just declared that the Beatles were "Bigger than Jesus," long hair was in and all the kids were quoting Captain Kirk (from Star Trek) "Beam me up Scotty."

The United States and the Soviet Union were like two fifth graders in a schoolyard standoff in something called the Cold War. 

The Civil Rights movement was in full swing, rioting and Viet Nam Protest was happening all over the country. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."

Markie D was 10-years-old and in fifth grade... but to understand his psychosis, you probably need to go back in the blog and read about the "The Zoo," "Salton Sea" and "The Hamper."  When Mrs. D. wasn't teaching school at Saint Marks, she came home and locked herself in her bedroom and watched episodes of Bonanza, I love Lucy, Bewitched and The Beverley Hillbillies (and of course got her dose of the Lennon Sisters on the Lawrence Welk Show every Saturday night). Meanwhile the Wolf Pack (that's Mark's older brothers) were calling the shots at the Dahlin family asylum.  They were creative, intelligent, mischievous beyond imagination and totally unrestrained. HELLO?

We left off last time...with Markie punching poor Billy in the face and was now fearing the consequences of the wrath of Mr. Lennon or that Billy might join Ulrich's "Small-Men Army of Anarchy." 

Having barely survived the first day of Fifth Grade in Sister Godzilla's class, Markie D was about to discover THE MOST TERRIFYING NEWS OF HIS LIFE on Tuesday.  It wasn't about the threat of nuclear warfare or Viet Nam, it was something far worst, it was about his second oldest brother's college schedule (which had everything to do with what happened in the school yard at the end of lunch time to poor Michael C). 

Markie D ran home for lunch, saw a snake in the palm tree next to the Smith's house, which he knew that had escaped from the attic cages of his old, turn-of-the-century 3 story home. It was not the rattlesnake that put the entire neighborhood on high alert for the past week...so Markied D wrestled the gardersnake from the palm fronds and took it home.

When Markie D descended the stairs it was like a cold chill that blew in horror movies just before the knife repeatedly stuck it unsuspecting victim. Bjorn (another made up name to protect the guilty), stood in the direct path between the service stairs and the toaster.

Markie rounded the corner and Bjorn's eyes lit up and a crooked smile broke across his face like that of the Grinch when he looked down on Whoville after stealing all the presents. The Terrifying News was that Bjorn, now in college, had Tuesday and Thursdays off during Markie's lunch hour.

From the look that Bjorn gave...Markie knew he was in trouble...he just didn't know how much at the moment. Besides the fact that there was 8 years between them, Bjorn was tall and Markie was small. Bjorn a hairy-hippy viking who towered above 6 feet and Markie was the smallest boy in fifth grade - at barely over 4 feet and not more than 70 lbs dripping wet.

Mark gulped when Bjorn asked him if he knew what a "template" was. He knew it was a loaded question and attempted to throw out positive pheromones, like he tried to do with the attack rooster in the backyard.

"A template is a plastic thing you draw around, right?"  Markie said... trying not to reveal his fear...as if he could will himself to be released from Bjorn's sinister tractor beam.


"No, let me show you" replied Bjorn in a threatening tone that gave away his intent.

Frozen by fear, Markie could not move. This was like one of those moments in his dreams where his feet would not comply to his demands to run away. Bjorn's grin stretch from ear to ear as he approached the little fellow who had retreated home for a piece of sourdough toast in lieu of packing a lunch this morning.  

Bjorn's words sounded as scary as the doll in the Twilight Zone when she said, "My name is Talking Tina and I don't think I like you." It was just one brother and Markie figured he could take them one at a time...but Bjorn lulled Markie D into a hypnotic sense of false security with his even, soft tones. Bjorn said, "This is a template" and grabbed Markie by this temples between his strong thumb and other fingers. Bjorn squeezed almost lifting Markied D off his feet. He squeezed and he squeezed and Markie D blacked out, went limp and crumpled to the floor... in a unconscious pile of flesh and bones. "Restless dreams I walked alone. Narrow streets of cobblestone."

Markie's head spun as he slowly faded back into consciousness... Little did he know this would be a ritual he would have to endure every Tuesday and Thursday for Bjorn's first college semester. "Hello darkness my old friend"

Clinging to the edge of the bumper pool-table for support - though semi-alert and dizzy, Markie managed to make it back to his feet.  He staggered his way past the stacks of National Geographic magazines, successfully toasted his Pioneer sourdough bread and happily headed back to Saint Marks with his warm, buttered toast.

Michael C. please don't do what your about to do next - this is just a warning: DON'T MESS WITH HIS TOAST!  Next time, apparently, poor Michael, the bully, didn't get the memo!

God was kind to Mark and gave him special coping mechanism that, though feeling alone - like a rock, an island...like Mogwli lost in the jungle and raised by the Wolf Pack...despite how he was treated or should I say mistreated...He was a happy little soul who lived in his own little world.

He'll grow up to have certain character flaws... memory loss... learning disabilities, but eventually - by the grace of God, the little guy will be Okay! :)