The hilarious, picture-driven, true memoir of the youngest boy of the 60's "most dysfunctional family." Markie d's quest for survival and identity helps us discover and deal with the dysfunction in all of us. Funny, politically incorrect and thought provoking.
In the words of an ancient sage, "Laughter is good medicine."
'72 swim team
My New Tribe
Showing posts with label history of the 60's. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history of the 60's. Show all posts
Thank you to all those who gave their lives so that we could have the liberty and the freedom to safely assemble on stairs and front porches - We remember you... we honor you... we thank you...
1955
1957
Left to right Karl Mary Mark (in diapers) Erick Tony
L-R Tony baby Erika, Mark, Irma, Theresa, Kris, Mary
going to the dogs L-R Bluin Randy
1979 L-R Uncle Mark. Erika, Tim, Tom, Kurt
1980
L-R mom called "H. Joan" Irma, Kurt, Mr. D, Karl (top) Janet, Mark, Marilyn (top center) Mary, Theresa (second row), Dianna (above Theresa), Kris, Erick and Bill
Mid 80s more grandbabies
1999 foundation and pillar repair
2012
Paint
2014 Neighborhood Lennon (cousins)
Kippy, Tommy, Jeffery, Kevin, Michael
DAHLINS
"The family. We were a strange little band of
characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one
another’s desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of
our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving,
laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us
all together."~Erma Bombeck
This next story happened on the same Sunday that Jeff snorted cups-full of gangling, thick-green boogers at the altar which activated my Super-Powers in a volcanic eruption of vomit that ended up all over Ricky and on the feet of the Priest and over the front of Saint Mark's Church - but thankfully missing Jesus who was being help up high over the head of Father Bond in the form of the consecrated Eucharist.
Ulrich had decided that shaming my family in front of the entire Catholic Universe and almost being excommunicated...used as bad example in a sermon homily, having to say a quadrillion "Our Fathers" and put on Altar Boy Suspension - apparently wasn't enough punishment for me. He had other plans in store, but I guess God must have seen things differently.
We had move up from the old handheld can opener to a wall mount, not because we were "keeping up with the Jones" which happened to be the Blasers next door - but because if something wasn't screwed down in our house you just couldn't find it. Many a Thursday "basketti night" (spaghetti night) ended up as hamburger helper without the hamburger with all kinds of leftovers and some of expired food Frank Nargie brought home from the Safeway Food-Bank (and occasional dumpster) all tossed in and missed into a meatless "Helper Goulash" YUKE (superpowers)!
We went from this to this (now we were "uptown")
So the good news was that now we had a can opener attached to wall that couldn't be buried under stacks of National Geographic magazines, newspapers and the mountainous pile of debris conjured up daily by the 72 inmates who lived in our house. If you drove a small car into our living room it could get lost by the end of the day.
And now we could actually have tomato sauce in our "basketti" ("spaghetti" for all you people that don't speak "broken-12-year-old").
Anyway, it was one of those days that the flip-had-switched in Ulrich's head and he decided he wanted to kill me for throwing up at Mass and bringing shame on our family or because I had grown a little and was just an inch shorter than him. I was short twelve-year-old and already catching Urich in height who was a 10th grader in High School.
Ulrich set a ambush and hid behind the cage of fouled-mouthed Mynah bird in the entry. When I came through the front door smelling like this mornings warm-oatmeal-and-sour/powered-milk-concoction-mixed with-bile the "dirty" bird squawked off a curse word (not acceptable in a Catholic home by-the-way... purgatory was too good for this bird)... the monkey in the living room jumped and it scared the whits out of me and I flinched (remember my childhood PTSD) at the exact second Ulrich jumped out at me in surprise and caught my freaked out flying hand RIGHT IN THE CHOPS! Yep, I had just busted Urich in the mouth...now I was really in for it. He had something more than just the usual beating in mind...A hamper (blog 6/5/13), an electrocution (blog 4/26/13), hung out a window, buried in a pit(blog 2/27/14), or perhaps smothered under a mattress, all I knew was that I had better run and run quick! Ulrich had a broom in his hand and promised I was going to die. What was Sister Edith's Prayer? Do I dare say it again? Have I over used it? Maybe I deserve this for what I did at Mass (last post)...Running... running... running for my life...oh well, here goes, "Dear Lord I love you, forgive me for my sins" Yep, it tasted like captain crunch tearing up the roof of my mouth.
Wrong turn into the kitchen! Trapped with nowhere to go - for sure this was going to end in death. GUESS WHAT I SAW?
You know what? I'll leave you in suspense until next time...and tell you exactly how I invented the "Reverse Mohawk" And I guess I should also tell you that it was a fad that did not catch on. Oh well, If I have a moral for this part of the story - don't bring home boxes with thumping things inside and for "Pete's Sake" whatever you do - don't throw up at Mass all over the Priest!
(Continued from 1-18-14) I stood across the street and felt the dry heat of the flames as the old mansion continued to burn. The smell of the smoke did not betray the age of the old place. It didn't smell of new pine, but like old wood mixed with ancient dust that was being incinerated. The chaos of a ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST continued to loom as I watched the all the aimless and dazed half-naked zombies who had been rescued by Mr. Blaser in his underwear - and by my tribe - to which I was very proud, but also a tad bit miffed for making me stay across the street "out of harm's way."
It was dangerous as cars continued to catch on fire and blow up... I don't want to sound morbid - this was indeed another sad chapter in the story of Harding avenue...but I can't lie, it was entertaining to see O' Mr. Nargie behaving like a teenage cheerleader at football game, as he frantically rooted on Bobby Tripp who was on the roof with a garden hose (with very low water pressure) trying his best to keep the Nargie -Tripp duplex from catching on fire.
I made up cheers and began - chanting them to Tommy who was standing next to... as though they were Mr. Nargie's words... who was across the street moving back and forth like a crab and waving his arms up and down for the home team.
"Douse it out...Douse it out...WAY OUT! Keep it back... Keep it back...Way back! Douse it out...Keep it back...Put it out...WAY OUT!" I had Tommy in stitches... until I was interrupted.
Pat Lennon looked down at me, shook his head and said, "You're weird!"
The first thing that came to my mind was, 'of course I was - I've been electrocuted...left behind...tied to trees...buried in pits...choked...knocked out...attacked by a rooster...shot with needle-tipped arrows...wrestled an alligator...had to contend with the revenge of Sister Godzilla in the fifth grade and suffered oxygen loss to the brain...OF COURSE I'M WEIRD! Hello!?'
Then it suddenly dawned on me who it was. It was Pat Lennon! I looked up at him sadly and asked what he was doing here.
"Climbed out of a window and escaped!" he said. "Couldn't miss this."
"Where is everyone else" I asked.
"Danny snuck out with me and is around here somewhere, but everyone else is under lock-down by the Secret Service. When the cars started blowing up, man, they thought it was gun shots and went ape on us."
"Hey, Pat...I'm sorry!" That's all I could say... and probably all I needed to say! Like I said before this was the third biggest crime to ever happen in the history of Venice California. The first biggest crime happened just a couple weeks prior to this with a bunch of craziness when a lunatic who had been stalking the Lennon Sisters also made assassination threats against the President of the United States. In trying to be sensitive to that event, I'm not going to go into that story at this time... but suffice to say that with a Secret Service detail at the Lennon House and with the entire the family under protective custody we can cross Billy and Joey and Kippy and all the other Lennon's off the suspect list.
1) My Brothers - the Wolf Pack 2) Mr. Blaser and his whitey-tighties
3) My Dad - AKA Mr. D 4). Mr. Lennon 5) Frank Nargie
6) Rita Nargie
7) Sea-Shell
8) Leeland the hot-rodder 9) Weenie Tripp and Family 10) Johnny Gillemonster 11) Tommy Blaser the Somnambulist
12) Four boys dressed up as girls
13 The Saint Mark's Nuns 14 Walter Daniels
15 The Anti-War Crazies
16 the Owner of the property.
For my brothers...they were out in Wall Drug doing some hippie stuff back there and had not sent up any... UFO's i.e. flaming dry-cleaning bags...recently so it wasn't them. They go off the list (Blog Post 8/24/13). As for the four boys who had dressed up like girls - even though everyone's feelings were hurt, Tommy and I had seen them through the fence in the backyard smoking leaves from their precious "Mexican Tomato Plants" in those funny shaped cigarettes.
1) My Brothers - the Wolf Pack
3) My Dad - AKA Mr. D
6) Rita Nargie
7) Sea-Shell 8) Leeland the hot-rodder 12) Four boys dressed up as girls 13 The Saint Mark's Nuns
15 The Anti-War - peace-loving Crazies
16 the Owner of the property.
My oldest brother, Gustav was out in the Rat Killer racing Leeland and had brought home a pocket crammed full of cash to prove it...so that accounts for all of my brothers and unfortunately, also gives Leeland an alibi.
1) My Brothers - the Wolf Pack
3) My Dad - AKA Mr. D
6) Rita Nargie
7) Sea-Shell 8) Leeland the hot-rodder 12) Four boys dressed up as girls 13 The Saint Mark's Nuns
15 The Anti-War - peace-loving Crazies
16 the Owner of the property.
I pretty sure dad wasn't involve - he had just driven in late from West Covina selling new, all-electric gold-medallion track homes out there so that eliminates all the Dahlins.
3) My Dad - AKA Mr. D
I was now down to four possible suspects, although Ricky Tripp came over to where Tommy and I had been standing and said something about his mother smiling a lot with all the firemen running through their house. I didn't know what to make of that - but I still don't think she set it on fire.
1) Rita Nargie
2) Sea-Shell
3) The Anti-War, draft-card-burning, peace-loving Crazies
4) The Owner of the property.
As for Johnny Gillemonster... I really liked him as a suspect and when I went over to his house with my detective note pad... and interrogated him... this is when he told me the of story of the dog-poop payback - did jive with me - so I'll tell you that story next time.
In the meantime...Chewbacca had discovered a dead body at the foot of the 60 year old palm tree which turned out to be the only fatality of the Great Fire of '69. Chewbacca fell to his knees, leaned over the corpse and cried.
Until next time..my friends...Gud välsigne och Hej då
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!
1957
1960 with Ford Woody in background 
sidewalk repair 1965 
Swat team and animal control 
Karl, Theresa, Vicky, Vicki, Irma, Mark, Erick
1979 L-R Uncle Mark. Erika, Tim, Tom, Kurt 
1980 
1999 foundation and pillar repair 
2012 
