The Boogie-Woogie, Boogy Man!

What I didn't say last time (when I told the truth about the Lennons), is that they were also very creative along with being talented.

Some of that creative juice began to spill over into their elaborate front and backyard productions.

As some of them began to wonder off the premises and down to our house, I think it lead several of them to be corrupted by the Dahlins as they also began to grow long hair. Some of the older Lennon boys began to come over and help my brothers in the cultivation of the "Mexican tomato plants." 

 Again it was quite bizarre to me...for a couple reasons!  The first, is those plants never grew tomatoes and second is the fact that this gang of hippies were so fastidious and diligent about those ugly - stinky o' plants... when they weren't really known to be fastidious about anything else!  It's 1968, I'm in seventh grade, and I just didn't get it.

I don't know what their infatuation was in those stupid plants. I'm no expert, but it did seem to have something to do with the long hair.  Hummmm?

Now the Lennons began hardcore decorating for Halloween and putting on a show for all of Venice and Santa Monica and Culver City... Everybody would come and crowd our block and watch the latest installment of the Lennon haunted mansion. ONLY...!

The only thing is, although the the Lennons put on a great show, our house really was haunted.

                      I'm not lying!

When I was really small, my mom and the Wolf Pack would hold scary séances. With all the lights in our big creaky old house turned off  - mom and the boys would gather in the candle lit room, touching thumbs and baby fingers connecting all the way around the large oak table. I don't know why we were allowed to do this as Catholics...but we did! I don't know if there was a formula or chant involved, I was too young to remember that, but whatever it was they did... it worked! That old heavy table lifted off the ground and hovered as if floating.

Watching the table float like that gave me the heebeegeebies as the hair on my neck stood up and I got fraidy-cat goosebumps all over my body. Freaked out by all this darkness and candles and everything else, I crawled underneath to see if it was some kind of hoax. But it wasn't!  That 'O table was moving all by itself... and I didn't like it one bit!  And I tell you right now -even some of the older boys were scared. When I was under the table.. I smelled urine! Somebody peed their pants... and that somebody was a teenager!  

I think what this voodoo-ritual-thingy did, was invite bad stuff into our house that stayed there for a long, long time. If you stick around long enough with me...I  am eventually going to share some of that evil-craziness that really did happen.

So RIGHT NOW...I going to admit to the WORLD that I was afraid of the dark. I figure that if you knew the context then you wouldn't judge me so harshly. We had angry ghost as well as the boogie man living with us...NO WONDER WE WERE SO MESSED UP!

I just knew...they lived in the attic, in the dark dingy basement, in the recesses of my bedroom closet and in most of the dark places where light refused to shine. When the boys were doing their herbal experimentations with those tomato plants and smelling like a bunch of skunks, I think those ghost...the boogy man...whatever you want to call them...whispered in their ears and gave them some of their brilliantly sinister ideas...

“Hey…order of the Wolf Pack, why don’t you electrify the sides of the pool and shock your little brother.” 

They would happily emerge from the cavity in the ivy saying things like, "Dude bro... that's a groovy idea bro..."
 "Righteous dude! Cool man, let's do it."
 "Dude!"
 "Groovy"
 "Psychedelic Man"
 "Now, this is a funky situation"

 
It sure seemed to me that whenever those older boys got around those plants and they ended up in that dark, hippy, ghost-infested-grotto (that was covered in thick ivy hidden behind our mosquito pond...AKA the pool) they would come out looking for me... with some diabolical plan in mind.  

ANYWAY... I never-ever-ever-ever wanted to be home alone!  When the three of us little ones were left all alone we heard footsteps and things that went bump in the dark.

 I'd have to admit, however, that it was a good thing not to have the Wolf Pack in the house. At least I didn't have to worry about getting shoved in a hamper, squeezed in the temples of my forehead and knocked out, tied to a tree or anything like that - THINGS THAT WENT BUMP IN THE DAY!  YAY!   But Madeline (one year older), Kjersten (couple years younger) and me...we would find the clearest room of house (the room with the least amount of junk and clutter) - turn every light on that was possible, huddle together and arm ourselves with butter knives!

 THIS IS TRUE!  I'm not making this up. Pshawwww!    I have no idea how a butter knives would help us against the likes of the ghouls who lived under the bed or in the closet - monsters that I knew were just waiting to grab me by the ankles and drag me away, but it was worth a try!

 Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore-
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door-
Only this, and nothing more." 

                                                                                    'The Raven', by Edgar Allen Poe

If you grab your butter knife, next time I'll  tell you the EPIC story of how "John the Baptist" imploded into the scariest Halloween of all...      "The Spawn of Charles Manson."  

   



   

Something between Vampires and Frankenstein

A look at the blossoming Wolf Pack. 

Welcome to dinner at my house.

(Continued from last blog post "Fish Stick Fiasco") With the "beware-lost-rattlesnake " flag flying over the house and Kleghorn clanging the old alarm on the back porch, Dad walked into the house to find the Wolf Pack in hysterics. Four eyes and the girls were screeching, the mynah bird was cussing and the rest of the Viking brood were hair pulling, standing on couches and climbing walls and up on top of each other for safety. It looked like a fight at a hockey game had broken out. A couple of the boys were hanging from the molding over the doors and a couple were clinging to the wainscoting not wanting their feet to touch the ground. It was a sight! It was a typical Friday night at the Dahlin house.

As soon as I heard my dad, I stopped shaking the baby rattle and returned to the mayhem inside. Dad stopped at the wooden double-sliding doors that separated the dining room from the living room and just shook his head in utter dismay. He watched the hysterics looking for an explanation. Ulrich...tried to explain that the fugitive rattlesnake was somewhere in the room.

"KLEGHORN!" dad yelled, as a command to quit sounding the ancient and bullet ridden firehouse alarm.

Kleghorn joined the others in the dining room who had grown silent trying to prove to dad that they had heard the deadly snake slithering around the downstairs. There wasn't a sound, not even one shake of a rattler's tail. I smiled (mostly on the inside - afraid of giving my secret away). Dad shook his head, rolled his eyes and scavenged the kitchen for any leftover fish sticks as things returned to the normal high-decibel hullabaloo.

Being thoroughly embarrassed, the big brave hippies had something to prove to their girlfriends and began hatching their plan for the "Albino Camp Hike." (I'm pretty sure this isn't politically correct now-a-days, but this was the cultural/historical setting back then).

Back then, none of us were really sure what Albinos were. In the hierarchy of things that we had to be afraid of...we thought they were somewhere between Vampires and Frankenstein, right up there with ghost - way above lost rattlesnakes.

This Albino-camp-hike-thing they did was like a snipe hunt, combined with camp-fire stories about the "one armed hatchet murderer" and "submarine races."   Back then I was too young to knew what submarine races were and still thought snipe were real.

How perfect was this for the older boys...this was like shooting fish in a barrel. They would take all their girl friends on a late night hike behind that movie star - Ronald Reagan's house up on Amalfi drive.  They would walk that old dirt road lined with eucalyptus trees with these girls who were scared spit-less holding tightly to arms of the brave Viking men and crew.    Oh boy... could it get any better for those guys! 

They sat around the living room and told the girls about how dangerous the hike would be!

One of the guys tried to explain what Albinos were to the girls and said, they were half human and drank blood.

Gustav said they had thin transparent skin like desert geckos and could only come out at night.

Bjorn said the Albinos had to be locked up in this secure facility to keep them from straying off and eating the flesh of other humans.

Knut agreed saying they had razor sharp teeth.

Ulrich said they had red laser-eyes and if you looked into them you would be disintegrated. When Ulrich said this, three of the boys swatted him on the head...for exaggerating.

Dooh-Dooh Pants talked about their boney hands and pointed fingernails.

In broken Spanish, Chewy said they made the sound of the chachalaca.

They hadn't even left the house yet and the girls were already terrified and clinging to the boys.

My dad looked across the table and winked at me as though he had his own spark of genius.

The herd of wild hair and anxious felines jumped into the black Lincoln we called the "Scuba-Mobile" and headed off for Santa Monica Canyon.

Down, down, down the long dirt road they walked terrified in the darkness of the moonless night. Fearful and on edge the silly girls practically wrapped themselves around the brave, fearless Vikings. Cautiously they forged ahead along the path, wary of Albinos that might have escaped and lie in wait for fresh human flesh. With every step, hearts pounded in rapid palpitations. Fear had even gripped the older boys, but they pretended to be brave. Approaching the gates, the eclectic congregation peered through the wrought iron bars searching for the elusive Albinos.

Ulrich saw white figures swaying in the gentle ocean breeze and let out a blood curdling scream. Panic ensued, girls cried and feet fled. The mob ran hysterically back towards the large black car...when the very worst thing imaginable happened. Albinos had managed to squeeze through the bars and indeed laid in ambush.

I'm sorry, but I'll have to finish the gory and frightening details in my next terrifying blog post...

Until then...  Vet att du är älskad