markie d: A Global Phenomenon! Our Dam Picture

Okay, I think what I'm going to have to do here, is go back on my plan to tell you about the scariest Halloween ever recorded in the History of the World. If I play my cards right...I think, I just might be able to post some VIDEO along with it, as a Super Duper Bonus... I'M WORKING ON IT NOW!

And, if I can delay that for just a bit and kick it down the road a couple weeks, then I can roll that story out for you closer to Halloween. 

So what story to tell... Hum?

Ah, I think I got one.  But, before I get into the crazy details of this next unbelievable true story - I must pause for a moment of reflection. I was approached last week by an Author who said... that all families have stories: one or two really great ones.. you know the type that are off the hook, unbelievable incidents that would either shock people - scare people or have others rolling on the floor laughing" He said, "but your family has story, after story, after story... that are truly amazing and totally unbelievable. There is nothing like this!"   

He said, "People need to hear these stories, because they are just too preposterous, far-fetched and incredible for any one family. One or two maybe...but nothing like this!"

And these stories are all true:  
                                  We did let the monkeys out of the Zoo.

                                  We did electrocute ourselves and unsuspecting neighbors.

                                   My brothers did electrify the sides of our dough-boy pool.

                                            They really did shock me and little sister in the pool.

                                            They REALLY did shock a Catholic Nun!

                                   They really did knock over the entire fence at Saint Mark's Grammar School

                                   We really did have all those rattlesnakes and reptiles and those...

                                              ...rattlesnakes really did escape...terrorizing the neighborhood.

                                   They really did trap me in a hamper and throw me under the neighbor's car.

                                   I was really left behind at Salton Sea that turned into a high-speed Highway

                                              Patrol chase... that really did end up in the local newspaper.

                                   My dad really did make me use Sugar-Water instead of gel on my hair.

                                   Our iguana really did escape and ran across the street into the Tripps house.

                                   We really did have an attack rooster for a watch dog. 

                                   We really did have an alligator.

                                   We really did live across the street from the Famous Lennon Sisters

The hair... the tomato plants...the mosquitoes... the leprosy...Sister Godzilla... the forts... the fire pole...the templates...the arrows...the albinos...street cleaning...the Helms Heist...Milk Wars...our UFO's...our broken bones and the hospital bed...IRENE and the impossible - implausible - fantastic fact that we were "pranked" by the PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES - pshaw "Snapping Turtles!" 

 ALL of it is TRUE...and I'm just getting started!

And so, I thank you, for letting me share my story. 

For the 10,000 (plus and counting), from 43 different countries around the World - who have clicked on and joined me in my childhood adventures.

Thank you for making Markie D a global phenomenon.  

Sit down, buckle up, and hold on as we "Put the pedal to the metal" and head way back (this time to about 1962) to a family vacation that we took to the Kings River which turned into another Dahlin nightmare. 

This was not too long after the "Infamous Fence Incident" at Saint Marks School. That was the time, that my Viking tribe of brothers (affectionately known as the Wolf Pack) were either climbing in or climbing out of the school-yard. 

 

You see, my older brothers liked to climb...  it was a genetic thing... that began at birth.

 

 

Gustav said that one of the boys took it upon himself to climb right out of my mother's body three weeks before his due date! KaBoom, he popped right out on mom's birthday. "Surprise!" 

I was also told that the "Fence Incident" was allegedly after breaking into the church vestry and drinking the communion wine. On their escape, while climbing over that chain-link fence, it groaned under the weight of the entire Dahlin Wolf Pack, eventually collapsing on the brood, which took the entire Venice Fire Department and rescue team to unravel the boys from it tangled clutches. 

Puke-Breath (nick-named by my older brothers for wearing a retainer and always have bad breath), ended up having his leg broken in 8 different places!

                                     That is not a joke - neither was his breath. YUCK! 

Puke-Breath had to wear an full-leg cast and spend almost an entire year in bed. When he was finally given permission by the doctor to use crutches and hobble away from that rusty old hospital bed in our dining room, my dad planned the big celebratory trip to the Kings!

We packed up everything into our 1959 Volkswagen Van, tied down the over-sized paddle board on top, crammed every inch of that van with half-clad, platinum towheads and away we headed to the Pine Flats Dam, without even thinking that one of us might not make it back.  

 Here is our "Dam Picture!"

Escaped Convict from Leper Colony: pt 2

Last time, I just confessed to the whole World - the 3rd best-kept-secret in History.  The first best-kept-secret still is, Who really shot President Kennedy. The Second best-kept-secret is knowing the truth behind Area 51 and UFO's. And the third best-kept-secret (that is no longer a secret) is the fact that it was the Dahlins who brought the plague-infested, blood-sucking mosquitoes into the beautiful state of California.  We did it!  Based on my thorough investigation into the World Book Encyclopedia and personal observations, I'm pretty sure they followed my tribe and our sugar-water hair back to Venice where we bred them in our backyard pool!

Gherhing the Great, Tommy and I had just finished building a magnificent, elevated fort just three feet from the dark green waters of our squirming larvae pond. After interrogation, Mrs. Blaser decreed that Tommy could not join in the "inaugural sleep over event."

With great excitement, I placed my sleeping bag near the back door and was under the kitchen sink, looking around for batteries that I could put into my ancient flash light (which probably hadn't flickered in at least 10 years).  That is where I overheard two of my older brothers having a conversation about how to keep those pesky  mosquitoes away.  Puke-Breath (the older brother who wore a retainer and had bad breath all time) and Dooh-Dooh Pants (another older brother who was always cutting the cheese and stinking up the place) said that bananas acted like a true mosquito repellent. They talked about how they would mush them up - liquifying them and intended to put the sticky substance in a spray can where they would make a million dollars selling the product.  It all sounded very scientific to me, and besides they didn't see me in the kitchen - so it must have been the truth!

I kept quiet and waited for them to leave and Voilá...  Guess what I discovered on the counter next to the toaster?  If you guessed a Pigeon - named Johnny or a hairless cat - named Lazarus you would have been right. If you guess a zebra or giraffe, you guessed wrong!  And, if you hazarded to guess bananas - you were right! Just so happens, there were three disgusting bananas at my disposal.

"Ah-ha!" I thought...here are three shrivled-black bananas that are practically in a liquified state already! Well, Gherhing the Great was Irish or something like that and had freckles all over his body. If he got bit by our little mosquito pets, no one could probably tell! Me, on the other hand, I needed a way to keep mosquitoes off...(Hey, I thought "OFF" that would be a great name for the older boy's invention).

Sitting in a green chair, the demonic cat looked over my shoulder while Johnny the pigeon tried to land on my head as I mashed those bananas into a gooey-slim that rivaled my dad's sugar-water hair gel.

Knowing that Gherhing didn't need them as badly as I did, I smeared a thin layer on my arms, neck and face.
I'd have to admit, that it was really kind of mean for me not to tell Gherhing the Great about my secret mosquito repellent especially since our fort was so close to the primordial ooze we called a pool! 

The paste set up quickly and dried on my skin before Gherhing got back with his sleeping bag and the coveted Moon-Pies that he stole from his house. It was almost like I was covered in paper-mache and could barley bend at my joints. Every time I smiled, banana-plaster cracked off my face.

Even though I left a trail behind me like Hansel and Gretel...this would be THE BEST NIGHT EVER!

We made up ghost stories about the Creature from the Black Lagoon crawling out of the dark waters of our pool, grabbing us with his flippered-claws and carrying us back into the spooky depths of the murky waters.

Part of the problem with "grape-stake" fencing, is even in its best condition - it's all gnarled and twisted. Our fort had gaps that a Chachalaca could fly through. I wasn't too worried about the mosquitoes, however, because I had overheard my brother's secret invention and was totally covered. We could hear the relentless buzz of mosquitoes and spent the entire night swatted the bazillion buggers...Poor Gherhing!   Turns out that it was THE WORSE NIGHT EVER. It was one of those nights you prayed for daylight to put an end to the never-ending misery where minutes seem to stretch into hours. At five o'clock in the morning we had enough and retreated into the house and ended up sleeping on the living room floor.

At ten O'clock the next morning, we were awaken to the haunting sound of the Wolf-Pack.  We found ourselves surrounded by my older bothers who were pointing at us, laughing hysterically like frenzied  hyenas gathered around the carcass of a dead animal.

Knowing what I had done to poor Gherhing I felt sorry for my freckled little friend... UNTIL!
Until....I  pulled my arms out from my sleeping bag and SCREAMED at the horrible fright that was before me  Ten billion boils covered my arms! I reached up and touched my face and felt the wall to wall mosquito bites. "Ugggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"  I was Job from the Bible! I was Elephant man. I was the Hunchback of Notre Dame all rolled into one - I HAD LEPROSY!

"Unclean. Unclean." The Wolf Pack pointed at me and chanted hilariously. Gherhing didn't have a single bite!
What's worse, is that I was an "itcher" (I was a scratcher like that mange 'O cat). I scratched and clawed and bled and entered my first day of sixth grade in a stolen sweater as a scabby...pocked...plague-ridden leper.

To make things worse, Chewbacca took a black Marks-a-Lot marker and connected the dots making constellations all over my body. I looked like an 11-year-old escaped convict from a leper colony...and in Catholic school the kids petitioned Sister Superior that I wear a bell and announce my presence, whenever I was in ten feet of anyone.

I guess you know the moral of this story:

1) Don't believe everything your brothers tell you.                        
2) Bananas do not keep mosquitoes away.
3) If you wear boxing gloves to bed at night, they will keep you from scratching off all the scabs and help you defend yourself should the Wolf Pack attack.
4) Chlorine is good for pools... and
5)  "sticks and stones" may break my bones - which will certainly heal in time...but names can hurt a sixth grader.

Practice Kindness!

Oh, and Keith B, thanks for letting me "borrow" your sweater!

                                              

Roswell: The Fiery UFO Crash and The Crazy Conclusion!

This was us... blonde haired - blue/green/hazel-eyed Viking-Swedes at the middle of every mischievous thing that either went exactly according to plan or with plans the completely backfired - either way...the end result was usually CHAOS and mayhem.

This was the older boys when they were considerably younger...

And this...

and this...

Although we were surrounded by Lennons (something like a hundred million of them - sure seemed like that anyway) these were the famous ones on the corner!

Movie stars... appearing on the Lawrence show every Saturday night on NBC TV and making records; they were the picture of everything that is good and wholesome.

The Girls...

Look at them: pretty, talented, capturing America's heart in the 60's...





Us... putting fear into the hearts of America...the exact opposite... not very pretty and not at all wholesome... on the prowl and causing trouble.

Footloose and fancy free hippies in the making.

 
Trouble makers with long hair that usually ended up with someone being electrocuted, buried in a pit, dropped form a window, or falling from the notorious "Fire Pole" (previous Blog Post) which usually ended up with someone being hurt and better yet, with broken bones. Nearly a hundred broken bones - hence the old, rusty, crank - hospital bed in the dining room (you can see some pictures of the broken bones in previous blog post).






















Mom was still gone with that weirdo fella - Jerry. They took poor Chewy to the hospital after he "mysteriously" fell off the "fire-escape-pole." 

ALL alone - with no adults around, the Wolf Pack had set up the front yard as an "Area 51" staging ground for what would become our infamous UFO launch!

Little did they know how badly this incident would turn out... a down right "Roswell." That's what it turned out to be...alright! 

They gathered their collective resources and the plastic, dry-cleaner bag, Donny Blaser stole from his dad's closet and assembled a crude UFO.  I'm not sure I should tell you exactly how to put one together... because, as we learned the hard way...it was extremely dangerous.  DANGER  DANGER  DANGER

In complete contrast to my family.. the perfect Lennon Family sat huddled (as usual) in their family room just some 20 feet away from the shrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary that was so prominently displayed in their large front picture window.  













The boys filled the plastic bag with hot air from Judy Blaser's Style Queen hair blower. Then lit all 20 birthday candles that had been stuck in the McDonald's straws.

"Huston we have lift off..." Gustav shouted with glee as the Wolf Pack howled in delight as our very first   UFO successfully began to ascend into the atmosphere. Chewbacca could not get dad's complicated old-school Polaroid camera to snap the shot before the slow-moving illuminated apparatus  was too far away for a potentially famous UFO sighting "picture" that we hoped would end up on the front page of the Herald Examiner.

Having to do it all over again, the Wolf Pack sent  conspiring neighbors scavenging for more materials for a second launch. This time, Chebacca had my dad's Real Estate camera all set up and ready to go.

Up, up, up went the second launch with as much excitement as the first. Cheering, applauding, clapping...the Wolf Pack was totally delighted in the outcome of this newest UFO hoax. It was perfect and glowed ominously as it began to drift ever-so-slowly from "Area 51" i.e. my front yard. 

I had cheered from the top of my house, safely away from the crowds and eventually made my way down to street level to join the jubilant crowds below.  Everything was going exactly as planned. When the newspapers got these pictures...Venice would be on the famous UFO Sighting map. Spurious sightings would no longer be from the proverbial - deserted two-lane highway in  the middle of nowhere from a couple named "Clem and Ethyl."

When the camera spit out the undeveloped picture, Chewbacca put it under his armpit to heat it up and hurry the process. We counted down the sixty seconds it took for the picture to appear. Polaroids were awesome - you can get a picture in a about a minute instead of the day or so it took to have film developed - it our house it took forever it seemed like - because our little canisters were always getting lost. We all anticipated the total groovy awesomeness of this latest plan - there was pushing - and shoving - and pulling of hair - and name calling and even a skirmish with Ulrich and members of the angry-little-men-crew who fought the regular-sized-brothers for a front row view of the highly anticipated UFO picture to finally show itself. 

That is when one of the girls screamed as though she were being murdered. The intensity of her high shrill screech, however, did not match the intensity of our reaction when we looked up from the photo and saw the horror at which she had been pointing.

The newest UFO had lost altitude, and as candles blew out, it tilted slightly and caught the plastic on fire.
A huge, bright-red, flaming, fire-ball was heading directly towards the Lennon's house.

The Zeppelin inferno was on a crash course...as panic ensued, hippies fled...girls screamed, and the Wolf Pack ran around like The Three Stooges (only about 20 of them - The 20 Stooges). Gustav began barking out instructions as several of the boys grabbed me and Gherhing the Great. The older guys ran to the Lennons like mosquitoes to a lamp on a dark night. The flaming cleaners bag had crashed landed smack dab on the western slope of the steep roof...and that plastic bag burned like napalm.  

This was like Roswell or Viet Nam or like something out of a Sci-Fi movie - meets a war movie - meets Haight/Asbury - meets Father Knows Best.

Only us, right?

Like cockroaches or like Alfred Hickcocks "The Birds" we swarmed the Lennon House and made a human ladder that got a bunch of us to the second story and that is when they pushed me and Gherhing the Great up the ridge of the valley to scale the roof. Like a fire brigade from western movies (only different), up came bed pans, tin cans, and flower pots full of water. Gherhing and I doused the flames that refused to go out which only spread the fire out more on the asphalt shingle roof.

More hippies
More hair
More bodies
More containers
More water...eventually made it to us and we were able to save the Lennon house and the Lennons who had been watching their sisters perform on the Lawrence show - completely oblivious to the Harding Avenue pandemonium - directly overhead.  

That night the famous Lennon Sisters sang that pop folk-song: "Where have all the flowers gone?"

I knew... they had been thrown out of flower pots which had been used to save their house - little did they know! "When will we ever learn?"

We left, just as fast as we descended - scurrying away from the scene of the crime, all unbeknownst to the Lennons below who were caught up in singing along as they watched their famous siblings on TV.

(It would only be years later that Dooh-Dooh Pants and I would re-roof the Lennon house as a catholic act of penance.)

Marching back down the street like a pack of aimless lemmings, the Wolf Pack hoisted Gherhing the Great and I on their shoulders as though we were like heroes returning from a victorious war campaign. Retreating  to the bizarre sanctuary of the Dahlin living room, the boys destroyed the damning "UFO" picture and we danced - rowdy and ugly - but we danced!  We stopped and twisted and gyrated to records of The Beatles on our stereophonic console until mom and Chewy finally arrived home from their emergency room visit.We fully intended on turning down the HiFi sense she was home, but dad had arrived home from selling his lots at Salton Sea.  He turned the volume up and showed the older boys how to really dance.

We were dysfunctional and very imperfect, but family.  And at least tonight, I wouldn't receive a template (blog post June 26th), be electrocuted (blog post July 8th), bit by a snake (blog Post  Aug, 8th), coaxed into a hamper (blog Post June 5th) chased by a kook (Blog Post Aug 12) or left behind (blog post May 13th). Tonight  - "Hotel Crazy"or not - I wouldn't have to push cars, taste spoiled milk and from the look of things - probably not barf.

I fit and it felt good!

Love was out there somewhere...I could sense it... but as good at this was it wasn't quite as good as Dancing with Irene, because she taught me what true love really was (Blog Post July 15th).

Good Night.
God bless.

You are loved... and part of much greater story...Markie D

I managed to survive my first week of 5th grade which concludes the end of Book 1! 

Wolf Pack and Trouble in Outer Space.

(Sing this humming and snapping your fingers to the Addams Family theme song - it'll make more sense that way).   

"They're Hairy and they're kooky,

Mischievous and spooky,
They're altogether ooky,
The Dahlin Family."

Du, du, du, du..snap snap

"Their house is an Aslyum
When people come to see 'em
The inmates are a screa-um.
The Dahlin Family." 

That's just my family by the way, add to those numbers the Harding Avenue Gang and the Wolf Pack had numbers to be reckoned with.  On one hand, think of the damage that could come from assembling an unruly crowd of that size. Entire small countries have been toppled by less. On the other hand (on a more positive note) - the vast number of hippies in our Venice Tribe also lent itself to the possibility of...say...putting out a fire - should something go awfully wrong. I said "positive" not "realistic"!


Q. And what is "Murphy's Law?"
A. If something can go wrong, it will go wrong!

Problem was, that chaos always seemed to reign over order, and boy, did we cause a lot of problems.

While everyone in the neighborhood was gathered in our dining room (the room with the hospital-bed and bumper-pool table), Gustav my oldest brother and the oldest Blaser-boy from next door came up with a brilliant plan. What you have to remember is, that during this time in the sixties, everyone was all jacked-up and excited about exploring outer space and landing on the moon to gather green-cheese.

As I mentioned before, a new TV show came out two nights ago called Star Trek "Going where no man has ever gone before" add that to a couple TV shows which had already been out now for about a year, 
My Favorite Martin and Lost in Space, it was plain to see that rockets-to-the-moon and space travel were indeed on the forefront of everyone's mind.   

Every stupid fifth-grade-boy in the world already had the twisted theme song from Lost in Space memorized, so they could they could inflict silly grammar-school torment on a smaller kid. They would sing, "It's about time, it's about space, it's about time to..." SMACK "...slap your face" slapping their latest victim in the face at the opportune moment - then laugh at them for falling for it, and then running away in order to avoid adolescent retribution.  I probably don't have to tell you that the Wolf Pack (though, far too old for this kind of thing), was particularly fond of the ending part. The part where they slapped a younger sibling (like me) in the face.

300 slaps! You'd think, I would have caught on, right?   Duh!

Anyway... we were in the middle of the "SPACE RACE" with the Russians and they were winning. They had already landed a spacecraft on the moon and the United States seemed to be falling behind - landing on the moon seemed to be light-years off at a distance at our snail's pace!  This was all part of the Cold War and we were losing!

When we were still using monkeys, I wrote a letter to Washington asking if they wouldn't mind using any of my brothers in their rocket experiments. I told them it would be okay since they weren't a whole bunch smarter then chimpanzees (Oh, I made no mention about letting the monkeys out of the zoo). 

When we started to use real-live human-beings, I wrote another letter asking again - if they wouldn't mind using any of my brothers. I told President Johnson that they wouldn't have to feel too sad if we lost one of them should something bad happened, since I had like 28 big brothers. My dad said we had plenty to go around if something should ever happen to one of us (that's why I didn't think they cared if  they had left me at Salton Sea - I'm the second from the right in this picture - Oh and that was about a third of the group that were crammed in the station wagon and trailer, also pictured in the background. Blog Post: May 13, 2013). 

I never got a letter back from the President or from NASA. That was a disappointment!

Anyway, at this time we were sure there was life on Mars and it seemed like every week some hick-couple in an old Ford pick-up, out in the middle of the boondocks, saw a flying saucer - we called 'em UFO's - that's short for Unidentified Flying Objects.

It was always down an old, dark, two-lane highway,  far outside the city boundaries with no witnesses, where the aliens always seemed to abduct poor Clem in his jump-overalls or his wife Ethyl.

In pictures printed in the front page of the newspapers the UFO's looked like Frisbees, blurry footballs, a hat and one even looked like a cigar, but everyone was sure Martins had antennas and lived among us.

The Viking Tribe leader figured out a way to venture smack dab into the middle the UFO craze. They got dad's Polaroid camera, gathered up all of the necessary equipment and were destined to make local newspaper history.  This was one story, that we hoped would make it on  the front page of the paper, unlike all of the other times we ended up there, only to the embarrassment of my poor mom and dad.

Sending Donny next door to borrow a dry-cleaner bag from his dad's closet, the Dahlin's put all the other necessary stuff in a pile on the front sidewalk now officially deemed "Area 51"

McDonald straws, birthday candles and of course a Style Queen, hot-air, hair-blower for the initial lift off.

Although the original plan did involve UFO's, it didn't originally include a fiery crash landing on the roof of the Lennon house. We took our extensive resources and laid them out in  "Area 51." Little did we know, however, that in the very next hour or so we would have a "Roswell Incident" on our hands that endangered the entire Lennon family.  


Kids NEVER TRY THIS! EVER EVER EVER.

Until Next...

God Bless

上帝，造物主。

Gud velsigne

God zegene

Dieu vous

Бог благословит

Gud välsigne

Dios te  bendiga!

 

Sasquatch and Big Foot Frivolity.

Saturday Sept 10th 1966 continues and continues and continues... and boy does it continue!

Everyone, I am so sorry!  I've been extremely busy preparing for a new quarter of teaching and have been away from this blog for too long...so I beg your forgiveness. As a way of making amends I  have posted some pictures that I'd like to share with you...

You may have heard of the legend of The Sasquatch.. the hairy "Big Foot" of North America. Actually all that really is... are just sightings of my brothers when they are in the back-woods fishing...



You can't blame my brothers for being upset by the hillbilly paparazzi snapping pictures when they are enjoying the solitude of the quiet fishing life.



                  Can you?





 Give my brothers some privacy will you!


 There! That is one mysterious anomaly of nature -  answered.






Here is a picture of my mom combing my brother, Chewbacca's, hair!












A picture of all seven of us boys... this doesn't include... Mad Dog, Pinky or Kleghorn!
                          HaHa!

Okay, all joking and foolishness aside - I've included some real pictures of my family - "The Wolf Pack" you judge for yourself!










Hair! Flaxen, Waxen, Gleaming...Long Beautiful Hair!

Sasquatch with tuxedos... you don't see that every day!













Without the tuxedos!

What is the '60's-70's without a Volkswagon van?


                               RIGHT!?

I'm the tame one in the center, but I think you get the idea... We were a real hairy Rat Pack... true '60 and '70 hippies from the "Hippy" capital of the world... VENICE, CALIFORNIA USA!

My mom on top of a pyramid of a lot of hair.... OOOOOOOOOPS...

 Pyramid..fall down and go boom!  The Wolf Pack just playing around....

All right, I owe you a story. Why don't you take a minute to digest this, then in my very next post I will continue the epic saga of the longest day.  This is when Gherhing the Great and I get back from begin tossed around in vomit of the trunk of Gustav's race-car - to Wolf Pack Central. This is where the hippies are planning a standard prank on the little old lady next door and as an alien UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) crash lands on the famous Lennon Sister's house across the street!

 Until next time!

good bye

ha det

Hej då

au revoir

До свидания

adios

枝节，小事，附属事物。

Wiedersehen!