The Reluctant Reptile Wrangler

When I was down at the Dahlin House for my Brother's Memorial service I gained a couple more stories and felt that this would be a good time to tell you this one.  This funny story was told to me by Jack Cano (pictured to the left). We walked from the backyard around to the front yard to the exact place where this particular event took place - some hundred million years ago when dinosaurs and hippies co-existed.

(Pictured below is Jack telling me the story)

Just in case you haven't been following along with the blog from the beginning; the back drop for this humorous incident began years earlier when the Dahlin boys began their rather extensive reptile collection.  We had cages built into the walls of the older boy's third-story bedroom and cages built into old TV consoles we had converted into desert habitats. We had rattlesnakes and king snakes and garter snakes and the infamous Iguana Del Diablo (blog post 8/1/2013) up on the third floor. We had the alligator (BLOG post 11/1913), a giant bullfrog and a snapping turtle out back in the pond and our rather illustrious collection of four legged reptiles down stairs in the converted TV sets.

Most normal people sat around their TV sets in the afternoons watching cartoons or Bewitched (or the crazy Smith girls around the corner who had their eyes glued on Tom Jones in his glittery jacket and tight pants - Gross!) but the not the Dahlins. We were far from normal!

Instead, we sat around (like in the picture above) crammed in front of one of our gutted TV sets and watched the crazy world of the big, ugly, black chuckwallas, leopard lizards and horny toads climb around the desert habitat as if we were watching TV.  I remember one time how one of the hippies came in from the "Hooch Hut" from out back with eyes at half-mast, practically glazed over and desperately wanted to see what everyone was watching on TV and adjusted the TV antennae... saying "Dude, what channel is this bro?" Thinking we were all watching a miniature version of Godzilla.

As you know, we had inmates escape all the time - NO, not the hippies- but members of our precious reptile collection....i.e. Iguana Del Diablo...our alligator (that's another story). Our cages seemed to be especially vulnerable to snakes of all sizes and color and it was unusually upsetting to the entire neighborhood whenever a rattler managed to make a jail break. though this was a frequent occurrence at our house, I'm not gonna lie - whenever a rattler got out it freaked us out also.

On this particular occasion the glazed eye'd hippies were watching another episode of mini-Godzilla - feeding the Chuckwallas some meal-worms when one of them shot out past the foul mouthed mynah bird in the entry and took a flying leap off the front porch. This time the prehistoric creature did not head across the street to the Tripp's house (I guess, Iguana Del Diablo must have told it that it was not a good place to hide), instead it slid under a car and eluded the Wolf Pack who had been running around like the Three Stooges only there were about 16 of them. "The 16 Stoodges" Wow I'd see that in a theater.


After a short while the Wolf Pack had lost interest and most had staggered on back to where they come from.  Karin and I were still playing outside and that is when we saw it!  The grouchy old lady next door was out gardening in the front yard grouched over a hedge she had been was trimming with some rusty hedge clippers that were so old I sure Noah and his kids had used them way back in the day.

And there right below her bent-over-behind was the chuckwalla. I think that old lizard mistook her butt for a big rock or something. I was afraid for a couple reasons. Chuckwallas liked to squeeze themselves in tight places between rocks....do you know what I'm trying to say? I could see that thing making a run at her moo-moo and trying to fit himself in a spot where the sun don't shine.  I really didn't have too much against 'O Enda and although I knew that it couldn't end well for her, I figured if that chuckwalla ended up where I thought it might, It certainly wouldn't end up well for the escaped felon - the poor thing.




So Karin and I hatched a rescue plan...she would distract the old lady and I would wrangle the giant ugly behemoth.

Just as we put our plan into action, Jack Cano was coming back from Ralph's liquor store with a six pack and saw the whole thing. Karin tapped Edna on the shoulder and looked up with those puppy dog innocent eyes of a 6-year-old and I flung my weaselly little body right under Edna's butt, rolled across the ground and came up with chuckwalla tightly clenching to my chest with one hand and holding its jaws shut with the other hand.  I walked away wiggling and squirming and wrestling with Godzilla scratching at my chest and Edna turned around and snarled, "What's wrong with him?"

Karin looked up at her and said in reply, "That's just Mark...everyone says he's special!" smiled walked away.  Legend has it that Jack dropped his six pack and had to make another trip after trying to describe everything he just witnessed to Karl.

Just another weird day on Harding Avenue!





Here is to you Smith Girls!

For you android users
Tom Jones: What's New Pussy Cat

The BIGGEST MEANEST O' FISH Ever Caught on Dry Land

If you have been with my blog for a while you know that I came from a big family; mostly boys and in most part, completely out of control. You can bet that every day was sure to be an event where someone ended up in emergency room or we had a good story to tell – often both.  If it ended up in the emergency room THEN, to the Wolf Pack -  IT WAS A GOOD STORY.

 Erick, Me and Tommy Blaser - see how I wasn't touching a fish.

My dad was a fisherman and so were all my bothers – I wasn’t! Being the youngest boy, they just made me clean the fish – and I grew up not liking the taste of fish. It was probably a mental thing – like most of my problems… (i.e. my vomit superpowers). 

We tormented each other – and pestered our poor neighbors.  The house directly to the east of us, lived a little old lady (and her husband that we only saw from time to time). I think everyone has a neighbor like this in their neighborhood.  

                                                             


             (On Bewitched - it was Gladys Kravitz).
        ( Behind St Marks - it was Mr. Schneider, - thanks Theresa)

Being the youngest boy I was their first and favorite choice for all of their sinister and creative outlets.  Don’t worry, I’m going to tell you some of those stories about the times I was shocked in the pool, tied up and throw over cliffs (come to think about it - I  actually invented bungee jumping... Well, actually my brothers invented it. I was just the guy on the end of the rope they kept throwing over the cliffs on Tuna Canyon road in Malibu).

Besides me, their second victim of choice was the little old lady next door.

She didn’t want us around her car; she didn’t want us stepping on her lawn. Every single time a ball accidentally went over onto her lawn…

SCREECH  went her screen door flying open, as this ancient women would leap from the porch like an Olympic long jumper, grab the ball with a triumphal look of utter disdain - staring down all the kids in the neighborhood.

We figured, she must have had several hundred balls locked up somewhere in her house. They were mere children’s toys, how could she do it?

So the WOLF PACK conspired to get back at her for stealing all of balls that accidentally rolled onto her lawn over the years. 

They got out a fishing pole and tied one end to a whiffle ball. Then two brothers pretended to play catch with it – one brother with his heels imperceptibly crossing the boundary of our driveway - likely touching a blade of grass to get her attention. 

This went on for several minutes – a spy saw Edna looking through the screen and then the ball was "over-thrown" and landed smack-dab in the middle of her front lawn. The LAWN OF THE NEIGHBOR-BALL-THIEF.  

In anticipation, the screen burst open and Edna took a flying leap off the porch.  Bending down to pick up the ball, she looked at the Wolf Pack with the Grinch's grin, but before she could clutch her prize, the ball mysteriously moved away. Creeping forward she bent down to steal away the elusive ball as it moved just out of reach again. 

One brother was reeling in the ball with the fishing pole and over and over she crept closer to our driveway. He kept reeling - she kept creeping and as he wound that line up on his little reel, she chased that ball until her toes crossed over onto our cement driveway. Horror struck, she looked up to see about 23 ornery kids  all laughing at her.

O' Edna turned out to be the biggest meanest fish my brothers ever caught - the biggest, meanest fish ever caught on dry land for that matter.

We were ornery and cantankerous and so was the poor little old lady next door.  (Now that I look back on it - we probably made her that way).

We have to be careful don't we? All of us could be resentful like the Wolf Pack and bitter like my neighbor.   "Bitterness is the poison we drink hoping it will  do harm to the other person."   

As trite or cliché as it sounds... I guess the moral of the story is that we can stop drinking the poison, blaming others and solve lots problems by just trying to love someone more than ourselves.  

CRAZY RIGHT?  

But modern American psychology would have us think that it is always someone else's fault - when indeed we just might be surprised to find that we are the "architect of our own misery" if not at least participants.