The Infamous "Tuna Canyon" Story part 1: The Quest to Belong

This next part is the lead into one of the classic Dahlin stories which happens to include just about every hippie in Venice and every twenty-something aged person on Harding Avenue. It is a story that is told over and over and over again at every Dahlin function... like the Salton Sea Story.. or the LA Zoo monkey story... or the Good Friday story... or the Fire Escape Pole story... or the Del Diablo story... or the Edna and the Whiffle Ball story... the UFO Story... the Albino Camp stories... McElliot's Pool or of being electrocuted or the story of electrocuting a nun...       

Every man who came back from the military had a nickname. And so it was part of the DNA of my parents generation to give nicknames to friends and to those who fought with you in the trenches.  I never knew my dad's military nickname, but he was the best at dishing out inventive pseudonyms to just about every person he had come in contact with. Jack Underwood, for example, became "Underwater."
Every person who had the last name of McClain or McCelland or McCarthy was called "Mac." Every Ferguson was "Fergy." 

Dad had christened the people in his real estate office after some personality trait or character flaw... "Slim," "Bubbles," and "Liver Lips."  

For the hippies in our neighborhood who hung around our house he gave them names like... "Hercamer Skeeziks," "Kleghorn," "Freeloader," "Sleepy," Girly-Man," "Quaker," "Spongecake" and list goes on and on.  

It was the normative cultural practice at the time. 

And so, this is why all of our friends had a tag-line as a nickname: "Primo," "Sleezy," "Booty" "Pinky," "Monkey boy," "Face," and why my brothers had given each one of us a childhood nickname. This endearing practice quickly degenerated in our house from and were tossed around like hand grenades - meant to inflict harm.  

You could probably figure out the meaning of the insult behind each of  these new names launched by my older brothers (this part doesn't take rocket science).  

In order, our nicknames looked something like this...

Brothers:

            "Zit King"

            "Girly-Man" (BTW, this has nothing to do with being effeminate - only the length of hair). In the                                         early years he was affectionately called, "The Crip." The Crip was the shortened                                         form of The Cripple, because of all the broken bones he had together at one time.                                         Later he was just called "Chewbacca." 

            "Mad-Dog"   

            "Puke-Breath" (if not self-explanatory - he wore a retainer and had the world's worst breath)        

            "Dooh-Dooh-Pants" My 4th or 5th oldest brother(depending on if you counted "Mad-Dog or not)                                                     began early on with this name (because he was always cutting the cheese                                                       and smelled like he had poop in his pants ). This made it easy to find when                                                     we were playing Hide N Seek. 

                                       Then he was called "Lardo" at about 13, because he may have been a                                                               whole 10 pounds over weight! "Lardo" was the shortened form of                                                                "Tub of Lard"(The crueler the better)!    

            "Flea-Bait" (making fun of his short stature). 

Sister: 

             "TQOTW"  (poking fun of her sense of self-importance).

Me: 

          "Marky Sparky" the mailman across the street, Frank                          Nargie, called me this, ( I wished that one had stuck).  

                   My brothers however, has a long list... 

           "Hyper-Boy" "Mosquito-Bait" "Rubber-Band Man"            "Retard... aka 'Tard" (that's the short list...but you get                                                         the idea).

Baby Sister: 

                 She was so far down the food-chain, that she didn't get                    a proper derogatory nick-name...the poor thing. She                        was the only person in our family called by their real                        name ... 

          "Karin." 

   

Following suit (since the Boys Scouts of America was a para-military organization), every kid in our troop had a nick name. Only, most of them had been corrupted by the same viral infection of our human nature (I don't know - maybe it had something to do with the creeping influences of the black ooze) that always seemed to make things flow downhill.

After the infamous camping trip at Camp Slauson we called our skewered and dangling, Senior Patrol Leader, Ray, "Lucky." "Lucky" was intended as a ironic jab and was more sardonic than it was sarcastic, employed in a way to make fun of the poor guy... who was indeed the unluckiest person in the world.

Behind his back, we called our Scout Master, Mr. Degotbee.  Degotbee was the phonetic pronunciation of the acronym, D G O T B, which means "Don't Go Over The Bridge" (which he did). 

Here I am, a 13-year-old late-bloomer and easy target. Not only do I feel insecure in my place in the world, but feel like an outsider in own family desperately trying to fit in.

I'm short for my age...don't have one strand of hair under my arm pits... I'm not a dope-smoking hippie and just don't fit in with the older boys...ie. The Wolf Pack. 

I am not welcome in hippie hooch-hut out back... I am too young to be invited to the hippie parties on Hollister ave in Santa Monica. 

I am not old enough, big enough or good enough to be part of the Venice Pinners softball team.

                       And... I didn't surf! 

I don't have my scuba certification like the rest of the older  boys and just don't belong! 

One time they took me on a scuba trip and tied me to the inner-tube they floated offshore as a marker (I made it "more visible"- they said laughing and "if carried away by a swell or wind, then it would be no loss. We tried to get rid of you at Salton Sea, but that didn't work - remember?"). 

They said things they thought were funny... and used cruel nicknames that deeply cut the heart of a little kid, who had longed for a sense of belonging in his own tribe.           THEY DIDN'T KNOW ME.

They told the Salton Sea story as a joke and laughed at each embellished rendition around family gatherings... to newcomers. I laughed too. But it made me feel like the biggest crisis in a life a nine-year-old was of no concern to them - it hurt! 

Here's the weird thing... the more I felt like I didn't belong - the more I felt like I needed to belong. 

That's why I said, "yes" to everything. "Yes, I'll go into the hamper."  "Yes, you can bury me in a pit."

"Yes, I'll hold this wire."  "Yes' I'll stick my finger in this hole." "Yes, I'll do underwater laps." 

And..."ARE YOU KIDDING ME? OF COURSE, I'LL GO ON A HIPPIE HIKE TO MALIBU CANYON WITH YOU GUYS! And the desperate (maybe even psychotic) 13-year-old said, "YES, I'LL GLADLY FIND A ROPE AND BRING IT."

Which brings me to another infamous story, a Dahlin classic. A story I pretend to laugh at and is used as a from of subtle torture at family gatherings!

Here is how it Began...   

Poochie laid out on the warmth of the soft, tar street as cars began assembling on the driveway and on the front lawn on a perfect Saturday morning.  

Hippies! Hundreds and thousands of them.  Maybe not hundreds and thousands... but 30 or 40 would be no exaggeration... gathered on the front lawn of the Harding House...  

     AND Markie D  WAS INVITED!  

 ....and I was even called by my real name...   

They liked me... everything was good in the world.  

                                            I Belonged!  

                                                                                                                                                              At least I thought so... 

                 

Sister Godzilla

Hey, I'm the guy in the diaper above. What your missing in the picture is 5 more (not puppies) family members. See those pants the older boys are wearing  - the ones with holes? Yeah those -  they got passed down a few more times before they got to me. That's what I called "hand-me down, down, down, downs." Every now and then I got lucky and got shirts that had most of the buttons still intact.  I always felt a little insecure and a bit self conscience about my clothes. So now I'll give you one more little snippet from my fictional memoir.

 Chapter 1  First day of Fifth Grade (cont)

All I wanted was a fair chance for once, but it was always the same thing. Sister Lucilla had only gotten as far as the “D’s” on her roll call, saw my name and freaked out in front of everybody. I smiled hoping to please my fifth grade teacher.  It didn’t work. She pulled me from my seat, stuck me in the hallway just outside the door and stomped down to the head nun in charge of the Catholic grammar school. 

 "He’s one of them.” she said protesting to Sister Superior. "Those kids are from the Pit of Abomination and I don’t think I could survive one more year. Mother Superior, no disrespect, but as you know, I barely made it through that experience alive.” She pounded her fist on the desk with every one of her last six words. “No! No! No! Absolutely not!” She screamed with angry eyebrows in a tone that sounded more and more like begging ―loud enough for practically everyone in the entire school to hear. 

“Please?” She finished, pitifully as if waving the white flag, pleading that it just wasn’t fair. She felt that she had suffered long enough.  With her left eye twitching, she despaired that one more Dahlin would likely push her into an early grave.

Considering the Dahlins a terminal infestation that had plagued the school for the past 10 years, Sister Superior didn’t even try to argue with her.  Instead she just looked with empathy at the nun (who at 63 ―looked at least 83) and said "life was not fair."

Being excited about the intake of another Dahlin boy was like being excited about ingesting spoiled food, both were sure to trigger a bad case of dysentery, bound to last an entire year. 

Pathetically limping away she was determined to pay me back for all the horrible pranks and crimes my older brothers had committed against her over the past eight years ―especially the pool incident at the beginning of summer.                          MORE ABOUT THAT LATER

“Apocalypse. Apocalypse,” She mumbled in defeat under her breath dragging her weary carcass back down the long corridor.  Pausing in front of a statue of Mary, sister made the sign of the cross and with new resolve, the stout five-foot German tank, pumped her cold boney fist into the air with the grit of a kamikaze pilot looked up at me and shouted,  “Not this year!  Not this time!”