Half Naked in the Janitor Closet.

Worst shirt in the world and the worst day ever got even weirder, but didn't turn out so bad after all.

Undressing in the janitor closet—bare-chested I found myself cornered and uncomfortable. The conclusion in a minute.








I met a new freshman kid named, Alex, who said he wanted to try out for the football team. The fact that he wanted to play football should have made us rivals. Football players and swimmers at Saint Monica High School seemed like oil and water—we weren't supposed to mix.

I could only pull up the collar of Keith Bjelajac's Saint Mark's sweater so far and think that Alex saw my ridiculous shirt in History class and felt sorry for me. I tried to hide from everyone the best I could, but at lunch Alex found me in the alley between the gym and the music room.

He had a lunch bag which caught my attention. Since mom taught and was always exhausted, she had quit making lunches about 7 years ago. It was easy for me to fend for myself while in grammar school because we only lived a block away. My little sister, Karin, and her best friend, Annie Lennon, would follow me home at lunch time and we always managed to scrounge up something having to do with day-old Pioneer Bread.

But here at Saint Monica's—that was a different story. I just figured that I would survive without having lunch. Pshaw—lunch is for regular kids. Alex's mom packed him a hamburger that had been wrapped in multiple layers of tin-foil. Alex didn't dare want to tell his mother that he didn't like the pickles that were squished on top of his burger and offered them to me.

I was now on the Alex Delgadillo food program - two slices of pickles every day and whatever else I could mooch off of him.


Anyway, it was the end of my first day at High School and I was hiding in the janitor closet stripping the hideous shirt off my body when the door opened.  Like the proverbial "dear in the headlights" I froze.

Football player?
Water polo player?
Janitor?  

 I WISH.

It was one of those catholic-priest-type-guys we called brothers. Brother Michael stood there and stared and I felt like I was naked. After coming to my senses, I scrambled to put on the brown sweater when he said, "No rush."

GROSS! I felt icky.

Footsteps. He walked away and said he would see me tomorrow in his History class like it was a promise. I felt like it was a threat.  

Fast and furious I pulled out about 500 rolls of toilet paper from one of the trashcans they were kept in, and buried the shirt on the very bottom. A fitting burial, I figured! I thought about setting fire to the school but realized that it may have been overkill.

On the 3 Lincoln bus on the way home a senior girl spotted me in my sweater with the deep V (without shirt) and my inglorious bare chest that hadn't been visited yet by a single hair.

To the shagrin of the other boys from Saint Marks who had gone through puberty in the 5th grade and had mustaches that rivaled Sister Cheryl's—this full-bodied blonde-bombshell picked me.

Ha. Take that Ricky.

This fully developed woman invited me to sit on her lap. I felt a little like I was back in the janitor closet. It was kind of weird, but I was now the envy of those mustached boys. I would like to think that she thought I was sexy with my bare chest and all, but think it was more like she wanted to mother me like I was her child.

Oh Boy.  Maybe, Andrea would take notice and be jealous. Maybe this day wouldn't end so bad after all.

I obediently sat on her lap as she combed my hair and made sure to push her upper female-parts into my body.  NICE. But seriously, now I was nervous. What was she going to do—adopt me? Something far sinister I feared.    


I made it back to Venice with some of my dignity intact.

Now I had to figure out how I could dump this scheming, senior-chick before she had a chance to work any of her sensual magic on me. 

After we got off the bus Ricky and Jim wanted to beat me up, but other than that I thought this "high-school-thing" might not be so bad after all.  

hehehehe 

Never again plaid and stripes!  Never again. 

One day older. One day wiser.  

Around the corner at Foster's Freeze and back to the Harding House where the Wolf Pack was waiting to pounce on me. 

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better.

          It’s not.”                                                                                        Dr. Seuss

Who Started the Great Fire of 1969?

(Continued from last time) The Great Fire Who-Dunnit?





No one got killed. Mr. Blaser, my Dad and my brothers managed to save everyone inside.
Bobby Tripp didn't have to go to jail and the grand old house on the corner of Harding Ave and Grandview had been burned down. The next day while the charred remains were still smoldering,Tommy Blaser and I decided to sneak inside the ruins to explore inside even though our parents told us it was not safe and forbade us to go anywhere near the place.





I was a kid on a mission. Yep...I, Markie D, decided to take on the arduous task of  helping the Venice Fire Department with their arson investigation (every fire department needs a just-turned 13-year-old to muddle in their affairs...right? I thought so!) And so I sneaked with my pad and pencil and began taking notes.

As a mentioned last time, I had a long list of  possible suspects.

The 2 prime suspects of this harrowing fire that were on the short list of the Secret Service and of Fire department were immediately ruled out.







The first being Chet Young, the cowardly fugitive who gunned down Bill Lennon and who was now on the run. The second was Charles Manson and 25 of his murderous renegades known as "The Family" who had been briefly arrested on August 16th at Spahn Film Ranch for the Sharon Tate and LaBianca murders and had been under close surveillance since the botched arrest.

1) Chet Young
2) Charles Manson and gang
3) Mr. Blaser (I didn't tell Tommy but his dad made it on my list because of what it was doing to the price of                       real estate on our street) but if he was a suspect then he would have burned our house down                         a long time ago.
         Since he tolerated us and our Venice Tower of bamboo trash, then I figured that I could rule him out.
3) Mr. Blaser 
4) THREE of the four Harding boys who had dressed up as girls and wanted revenge for feeling rejected.
5) Susea Grant might have done it for payback for being dropped on her head from the second story                                     balcony by her brother Cameron to the boisterous chagrin of the Frat guys

6)  Mr. D (that's my dad) he made it on the list, because we needed more parking for our eight hundred cars                                            and armada of trucks filled with trash and car parts.

7) Johnny Gillemot - the paper boy who had not been paid for the subscription to the Santa Monica Evening                                 Outlook by the guys at the "Frat House" who kept giving  him the "run around"
8) The Catholic Nuns who lived behind the "Frat House" which was nothing more than a den of iniquity.
9) Leeland, the guy on the corner of Crestmore who built bombs and liked to blow up things and wanted the                   barn to himself for his "Sin Bin"
10) Walter Daniels... Well, because they lived behind the big old house and for the fact that he was Walter                                     Daniels (don't try to figure it out - just accept it).
11) The Nargies - because they owned the property next door - enough said.













12) Tommy Blaser - because he walked in his sleep and liked to play with matches - NEVER a good                                           combination.

13) The Owner - Mr. Malon. Since the world had turned to conspiracy theories every since the                                                                  assassination of JFK back in '63  (i.e. including the moon landing last month)                                                we might as well add the owner of the property (seeing that it was worth more                                              for the insurance then what he could sell the property for.

This is not comprehensive by any means, but it is my list and one that had many more suspects on it than the Venice Fire Marshall had on his list.

Jimmy the "slurper" who sucked boogers into his mouth when his nose ran and licked his lips so much that he looked like he was wearing Bozo the clown makeup - road me over to the fire station on the handlebars of his Schwinn Stingray so I could present my list to the Fire Chief. When I read my list the Chief rolled his eyes, but I think that's because he was intimidated that I have more people on my list than he had on his. He didn't know things I knew. He didn't know about Susea getting dropped on her head or about the Fraternity jipping Johnny out of the paper route money they owed him or about Tommy and his hankering to burn things with matches or that Leland liked to blow things up. I did!

The Fire Chief didn't know about the four boys who lost a bet and had to dress up like girls and try to schmooze their way into the house and had to get the"Frat boys" to "hit" on them.

The Chief certainly didn't have the Saint Mark's Nuns on his list - but that's because he didn't go to Saint Marks school and didn't have Sister Godzilla in the Fifth grade or have Sister Shultz for homeroom.

Psshaw... What did he know?  Lucky for him I was his 13-year-old Harding Avenue, street rat, who was now his confidential informant.    

But for now, I got to say good bye. It's time to run inside and watch the Lennon Sisters on the Jimmy Durante Show.

THE DAHLIN ZONE and my biggest nightmare!

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man.  It is a dimension in Venice California in the gap in time between now and then. It is the middle ground between what was fact and what was perceived to be. In it lies the pit of fears regarding the survival of Catholic school and lots of older brothers. It is the dimension of 1960’s in Markie D’s imagination. It is filled with tragedy, humor and a satirical look at the human condition.  

It is known as “The Dahlin Zone”  

I blogged my way through that first terrible week of fifth grade in September of 1966. It is now October 1968, I have just turned 12 and am in seventh grade in Catholic School. Sister Edith is my teacher, and (like a lot of the nuns before her), she has had her share of Dahlin boys (5 or 6 to be inexact, one right after another).  By this time in her long teaching vocation she was just plain tired of the plague that had infested Saint Marks some many moons ago beginning in the 1950's. Sister Edith will forever be notorious for her music lessons and will likely go down in infamy for her "head tones," for cracking rulers over hands of many-a-seventh grader, and for throwing erasers. She had a good arm and nailed me just about every time she hurled one of those chalk-filled bombs in my direction. She is probably in heaven right now playing catch with Jesus (However, I just hope she's not throwing erasers).

Anyway... I skipped reporting on last year - my sixth grade experience. If life wasn't already difficult enough, I mean, being shocked and shot, buried and shoved in the Hamper of Death, Milk Wars and pushing cars, left behind and knocked out, bitten by snakes, tormented and tossed like a salad in the trunk of Gustav's legendary Rat Killer...Sixth Grade was far worst than all of those things combined!

Besides starting the year off on the "wrong foot" with leprosy, and a stolen sweater that embarrassed the heck out of me...Du...Du...Du...I discovered my biggest NIGHTMARE!

Oh, I had barely made it out of Sister Godzilla's class by the skin of my teeth. I'm not joking when I say,  "I barely made it out." My only consolation was the fact that all of the Nuns at Saint Marks already had - like - eight Dahlins before I got there and were not, under any circumstance willing to subject themselves to that kind of pain ever again. Not one of them would ever consider holding anyone of us back for another year. Thanks to the shear number of Dahlins and the rather rambunctious nature of my brothers, who preceded me, I practically had FUNKING INSURANCE.  When I was promoted from fifth grade, it was Sister Godzilla's last year and she tried everything in her power to flunk me back into the fifth grade for another stint- since she was leaving. PAYBACK for the time we had electrocuted her (BLOG Post 4/26/13). Apparently, the Pope vetoed her, because the Catholic Church felt they couldn't afford to ruin a perfectly new teacher, recruited to be her replacement.

I made it!  Just like the Hamper of Death... just like the Templates... and just like Salton Sea, I made it out alive!

Having said all that, why couldn't they have moved me across the hall into the other sixth grade class? Why did they stick me in my mother's class? (The reason was obvious,, to spare the nun across the hall). Yep, my mom had begun teaching the sixth grade at Saint Marks and I mistakenly figured that this year would be like being on a holiday where I could just kick back and relax!  Nepotism had to have it's advantages, right?




I love my mom, but boy was I wrong!

Turns out that, I didn't have a clue!

My mom was funny and there wasn't room in our classroom for two class clowns and besides she could make an example out of me! 

In the future.. they are going to find out some things about little boys.  They are going to discover things like ADD and ADHD and learning styles and things like that.  In 1967 they didn't have those kinds of labels. I don't know if that was a good thing or bad thing. Without being defined or confined by a label I guess we really didn't have all the excuses we have today. But, the way I was wired...let me just put it this way...there was nothing in that classroom setting that was conducive to my particular learning style. We couldn't move enough, we couldn't touch enough, the desk chairs were too hard and too straight...there was too much order... I couldn't learn through my ears and the teachers talked too much. All of this to tell you that...I was special...and they just didn't know it or how to handle someone like me. Shucks, why stand when you can sit? Why sit when you can slough? Why slough when you can lay down? Why lay down when you can crawl around on the floor and grab the girl's ankles. 

Why obey when you can climb over the cloakroom wall and make everybody laugh and why study when you can cheat off Regina's paper.  (It was all pretty simple to me - I don't know why they didn't get it)

Sixth grade would be the hardest ten years I ever spent in school! I figured my mom  might just flunk me, since I was hers. I pictured it in my head - I would probably end up like Jethro Bodine (on The Beverly Hillbillies) as a 26-year-old in Junior High School (I guess by then, at least, I'd be as tall as Marilyn Jones and maybe even have hair on my lip by then like some of the other boys). Anyway, like The Beverly Hillbillies, I was a fish out of water. That very first week I learned that sixth grade in my mom's class would not be a "cake-walk" especially since I arrived on the first day with "leprosy."

I'm going to tell you about that story,  but it all begins a few years earlier about how the Dahlins managed to bring mosquitoes to California.

Yep, we are the one's...all right. And I'll tell you exactly how that came back to bite me (that's a pun)...let's say, it came back to bite me - like a bazillion times AND just two weeks before the first day of school. Everybody knows that sixth graders can be pretty cruel at times and should understand why I wished I have been committed to a Leper Colony Instead.

I would have gladly accepted the bell around my neck and publicly declared myself to be unclean rather than the ridicule of my friends.

...and it all began with my dad's frugal, hair-gel concoction of sugar-water... which I tell you about Next Tme...

...in the mean time, here is a picture of my hair that is as hard as a plastic, baseball helmet...that a gale force wind couldn't mess it up. That is where we get the derogatory expression... "Helmet Head."

Oh, and by the way, The Beatles just came out with a new song, "Hey Jude" sounds pretty cool to me and looks like it's probably going to be a pretty big hit.

Take a bad song and make it better...  Don't be afraid

And anytime you feel the pain, hey Markie D, refrain,
Don't carry the world upon your shoulders

THE APOCALYPSE

THE APOCALYPSE

Warfare.

Every year before my first day of class I had a reputation that preceded me and this year was no different.

I was the enemy.

With my golden hair neatly plastered with my dad’s frugal concoction of sugar-water, I arrived in patched hand-me-downs and a uniform sweater “borrowed” from the lost and found. As usual I was wearing smelly socks scavenged from the floor of Flea-Bait’s room and three Band-Aids on my forehead covering my latest battle wounds. What made me stick out more than all that was the bright red nose which was still recovering from the sunburn that I got at Salton Sea a couple weeks ago. The only bright spot in my last minute transfer across the hall to Sister Lucilla’s class was my brand new PF Flyers. My parents gave them to me as a bribe. Handing me the shoes, mom said I could not mention anything about our Salton Sea vacation to another living soul. 

Excerpt from my fictionalized memoir: Markie D - Monkey in the Attic.

My Thoughts. I always thought I was weird for being afraid of the dark and as though I just didn't fit in with my motley crew. My family had left me behind at Salton Sea and for a little kid of 9 years old it was a pretty traumatic event.  We all just laughed it off later (I pretended well), but in reality it did wound the psyche of a small kid trying to find his fit in the world. I felt like one of those nervous rats that had to walk around the edge of the room with its whiskers touching the wall.  

Am I alone out there? Is there anyone else that felt like me? Scared? Nervous? Hurt? Disconnected? Unloved? Lost? It was hard for me to image any another human being in the entire world to have self-esteem as low as me.  I want to share some of my crazy childhood stories with you knowing that you have a story to share too. Share your childhood memories, comment below.