PG 13: The Smell of Victory...You Know you're From Venice If!

Star Date: July 23, 1969. (continued saga and finale)  The Grand Overture of the "Venice Plague."

It was a full two days since the Apollo 11 had landed on the moon and we had witnessed - "The One Giant Step for Mankind" and the Jamboree had officially come to an end. The 1935 National Jamboree in Washington DC had been cancelled because of the polio epidemic and I couldn't help but think that cancelling this Jamboree might not have been such a bad idea, considering the plague that had arrived from Venice California - likened to an abhorrent yet virile virus known as Troop 32. As it turned out, the infection spread throughout the 34,225 other boys who attended the Jamboree, but most ended up surviving - considering the head trauma, the stitches, our E.coli bacteria, the greatest prank of all time and the aggregated psychological torment that will likely require years of psychiatric counseling.

On the very last night after the amazing fireworks display... it was time for another orchestrated raid by the notorious "White Angels." (For those who are just tuning in, "the White Angels" are a band of rowdy Boy Scouts - making late night raids in nothing but their tightie-whities (that is butt-tight underwear) and a cacophony of masking tape that made us look like Zombies from hell.  One of our Senior Patrol Leaders gave us the brilliant  idea and the permissive wink-of-the-eye that created "culpable deniability" while saying, "But I would never tell you to do this. Because it would be wrong!"  (wink-wink)

Dego didn't want to borrow Chronister's underwear and decided that he would go on the raid with us in his "Birthday Suit."  Dego was older than most of us pre-teen pubates and was proud of his generous male endowment and was always looking for a good excuse to flaunt his stuff and taunt those of us still waiting for a single hair to show up under our armpits. After some argument, he conceded somewhat and decided that instead of going on the raid stark-naked, he would have Ronnie tape up his private parts with the masking tape - which I knew wouldn't end so well for him. (He didn't seem to care about the consequences... as a matter of fact - I think he was looking forward to it! Sick! Right?)  

                                      "You know you're from Venice if!"

Our "Saturday Night Massacre" began at 2:51am  in the wee dark hours when everything had settled down and was quiet in the Boy Scout compound. The raid began as we quietly invaded several camps in our immediate vicinity and stole every Idaho potato we could find. We gathered and amassed our vegetarian plunder in small mountain just outside the front tent flaps of the KYBO patrol. Armed with Idaho's finest spuds we sneaked, snaked and snuck out in groups of three towards the massive parking lot that was filled with those disdained luxurious travel-coaches of the other "Regular" Boy Scouts. One boy in each group shoved the oversize potato into the opening of the exhaust muffler.. the other kid hit is with a brick, a rock, a bat...or anything heavy enough to beat the potato solidly into round exhaust pipe - while the third kid served as a look out.  It took us a couple hours and by 5:00 we had managed to cover the entire parking lot. Hallelujah!

We didn't want the proverbial smoking gun to point in our direction so we stacked the excess potatoes, bricks, rocks and sticks across the field in the camp of the troop from Beverly Hills.




As 300 Boy Scouts at Farragut State Park (those anxious kids who hoped to  receive their "bugle" merit badge) unnaturally forced out an ear-piercing wake-up rendition of reveille on tortured bugles... it served as a covering for the horrifying screams from the tent of the KYBO patrol, as the boys exuberantly pealed the tape off from Dego's hairy underparts and also from his dangling thinga-ma-giggy that had been wrapped like a mummy.












We broke down camp and loaded up the Troop 32 Scout Bus for the long ride home back to Venice.



We fired up the old carbon monoxide spewing beast and watched the normal kids climb aboard the nice buses and smiled as if we liked them. 

We watched and gladly inhaled the fumes of our glorious beast as the buses of 20,000 Boy Scouts chocked and sputtered and coughed and flat-out refused to start. Alan played his rusty bugle as we laughed and sang a victory celebration from Creedence Clearwater - capped off with Dego and Cockrell flashing their bare-buns in a "full-moon," pressed up against opposite portholes of the beloved old scout truck from Venice. 

We bellowed in an awful cacophony like the squealing of 24 rats who had their tails caught in a door.    

"There's a place up ahead and I'm goin'

Just as fast as my feet can fly

Come away, come away if you're goin'

Leave the sinkin' ship behind

Come on the risin' wind

We're goin' up around the bend

Bring a song and a smile for the banjo

Better get while the gettin's good

Hitch a ride to the end of the highway

Where the neons turn to wood.." 

With a cover up like this; deniability; The Smoking Gun, midnight raids "The Saturday Night Massacre" and learning how to pass the buck.. someone in our group was bound to go into politics.

See ya later Bill Gates...and the rest of you suckas!

                                 Venice Rules!



 

The Venice Infection Continues to Spread

Star Date: July 16, 1969       10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1..."BLAST OFF" 

I know dad will be upset because I wasted an extra penny on this post card with my 6 cent Apollo 8 stamp, but I felt like I had to splurge since they launched the Apollo 11 today with Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins as humankind was on the verge of taking its first steps on extraterrestrial soil.   Yuri was the first human into outer-space in 1961 and the USSR had been way ahead of us in the Space Race. But now, the good 'O USA was about to finally leap into the lead!  Yee Haw! We were winning so I spent the extra penny on postage.

By this time, most of the pooping business had calmed down and we were regular again - well I don't know if "regular" is a good word to describe our troop from Venice.. but our bowels had certainly settled down.

When we rolled into Farragut State Park in Idaho to meet up with the other 35,000 Boy Scouts we were sweaty from fighting and smelled like an outhouse evidenced by the flies and mosquitoes in tow and also couldn't walk in a straight line - dizzy from carbon monoxide.

 It was pretty obvious that we were far from "regular."

We were like an infection spreading across the Midwest - more like the Bubonic Plague actually.


My adrenaline addiction helped me beat all the kids in the wrestle-mania staged in the back of Scout Truck and so things were looking up. I couldn't fight Cockerel, because he had diarrhea so bad and when our Scout Masters asked those in charge if we could camp next to the outhouses they graciously acquiesced to our request.

 "Wasn't that kind of them!"   Uh Huh!  

I was part of the Hawks patrol, thank God, because the Flaming Arrow patrol had Cockerel, Ronnie and "little Wiener" who staked their claim right next to the KYBO's.  In Boy Scout language or in Military language (I'm not sure which), KYBO was some fancy code word for the outhouses...it meant Keep Your Bowels Open! Seriously! I thought they must have read about us in the newspaper or something, because if there was anybody in the world that had their bowels open it was Troop 32!

It was embarrassing, really!  Those guys not only looked like they lived in KYBOs, but smell like it too! I pitched my tent as far-away as possible because I thought I might die from vomiting - you know my SuperPowers!

I felt a little sorry for Venice California because I think we had just soiled (that was a pun) their laid-back beach-city surfer reputation!  Anyway, if I could sing an ode to express the way I feeling right now in "Allan Sherman" style, it would go something like this:


Hello Mudder, hello Fadda
Here I am at camp "Diarrhea"
All the boys are overflowing
They say we'll have some fun when we stop pooping.



I saved the life of, naked Cockerel
he almost drowned from constipation.
You remember "Little Wiener"
He got gut-rot from last night's spaghetti dinner.

Now I don’t want, this to scare ya

But Cockerel now has "prune" eruptions

You remember the "Salton Sea" fuss

The Highway Patrol brought him back to us

Take me home, Oh Mudda, Fadda

Take me home to good ‘O Venice

Don’t leave me here in the back of the scout bus

or I might die from puking my guts up

Chronister smells like a bag of dog poop

And attracts all mosquitoes

Flies are attacking our dirty shirts

And everyone here has the “Hershey Squirts” 

Dearest Fadda, darling Mudda

How are my precious older Brothers?

Let me come home if you miss me

I’ll even let the hippies torture me!

Yellowstone was just okay

We made it out alive yesterday

I beat up Kissel, "Rollie-Pollie" and the Venice High Wrestler

Now I’m the champ, gee that’s better

Mudda, Fadda, kindly disregard this letter. 

for android users Allan Sherman: Hello Muddah Hello Fadda

The Shocking Discovery of 1968

 











We were back in 1968 before I began sharing flashbacks to the disastrous Kings River near-murder rescue in 1962 (Blog post 10/8/2013)...








...and the 1963 "Fire Ant" episode in Detroit with the naked teenager and a bunch of too helpful and too giddy nuns (blog post 10/26/2013)...







....and the Halloween video
where I tell the story of John The Baptist and his Identity Crisis i.e Wolf-Boy (blog post 10/28/2013) in front of a live audience,










It was October 1968 and I was in 7th grade (wearing Keith Bjelajac's sweater, my mom brought home from the lost and found - how embarrassing! But I had a sweater to wear for picture day, so I was happy with my Dad's sugar-water concoction that held my hair firmly in place.)   


Reminding you again where we had been:




This past summer while on our way across country to visit relatives, I had already described the unbelievable incident where the President of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson, detoured his Presidential motorcade under an overpass and orchestrated what could the funniest thing an American President has ever done in the history of this country. Stepping away from his secret service protection he pulled a prank of epic proportions by warning me and my big brothers about the hungry snapping turtles in the dirty river we were presently skinny dipping in(blog post 9/14/2013).
 
Anyway, on the way home on this trip we had visited Mount Rushmore, Reptile Gardens and the famous Wall Drug Store of South Dakota.

It was there that my hippy brothers bought a Wall Drug sign to hang on the ivy in the far reaches of our Venice backyard to designate the hippy man-cave.

Again the year was 1968, and it wouldn't take rocket science or a huge stretch of the imagination to figure out what was happening when the hippies convened in the dark hollow of the ivy grotto behind the infamous pool of electrocutions. 

By this time, the above-ground pool was far too green for chlorine redemption so the liner was torn out and the 4-foot-metal-sided enclosure was now the boarder for our new reptile habitat and Amazon rain forest pond - complete with cayman (caiman) alligator!

Lucky me... when I discovered the the sharped-toothed crocodile, while the habitat was under construction.

Okay... so it really wasn't lucky me when I discovered the big secret the older boys were keeping hidden from my parents.

Tune in next time for the this shocking discovery... along with the "Mexican Tomato Plants" and the mutant giant Veloci-Rooster imported from hades.

oh and JUST FOR FUN...

Can you guess where I discovered the temporary accommodations of this prehistoric crocodile? 

Please post your guess in the comments below! Let's see who can get close to guessing - not just where I accidentally encountered the ferocious beast, but also take a stab at describing the circumstances of this frightening discovery - and remember this is a "Dahlin event" so please feel free to use your imagination.  
 
until next time...  vet att du är älskad!

and remember "Never insult an alligator until after you have crossed the river"
                                                                                                      Cordell Hull 

 

The Detroit Exorcism and the Naked Teenager.

Sorry to keep you hanging. Where were we?


Oh yeah, a bunch of dirty, hungry, ornery, smelly kids and two cranky parents just pulled into the parking lot of a Catholic Convent in the inner city of Detroit.

 (A never before seen picture recently discovered before the start of the trip - Disneyland parking lot - monorail in background). 

We had been fighting and farting and starving all the way across country in order to visit our Swedish relatives in the suburbs of Detroit. My parents thought they could kill two birds with one stone: 1) We could pay a visit to my mom's only sister, who was a catholic nun; AND 2) They figured that the layover and the food stop might minimize the potential havoc and destruction upon arriving at aunt Sally's house. My dad was trying to spare his brothers and sisters the plague of the locust.

"What could possible go wrong at a convent...for Pete's sake?" My dad said, making his case for the stop at the Convent!  I saw my mom roll her eyes... remembering that this was the last thing the captain of the Titanic said just after striking the iceberg.

The infestation of Dahlins hovered across the ground like a dark cloud as the Viking clan approached the concrete steps of the red brick building. Nuns rushed to the large front door for greetings and pleasantries, but mom frowned with worry, thinking of the death cloud in Genesis in the Jewish Passover. She took two deep cleansing breaths and apologetically gave her sister a hug.

As the dark cloud....I mean as the Dahlin clan ascended the stairs for the formalities, Puke-Breath was suitably satisfied and pleasantly distracted with his hands fishing around inside his pockets to make sure "everything" was still in order after the long journey.  Not wearing any underwear, he was confident that he was immune to a surprise "wedgie attack" and gave no thought to Gustav's inquisitive investigation of the tropical fire ants that swarmed under the tires of the Ford Econoline van.

One of the little buggers bit (or stung or whatever- Fire Ants - do) Gustav's hand and he leaped with joy shouting "Eureka!" like Archimedes and seemed as happy as Benjamin Franklin when he had harnessed lightning at the end of that kite string.     

Everyone was too busy to pay attention to the fact that Gustav had scooped up half the colony in the Folger's Coffee "pee-pee" can, trapping them inside by snapping on the plastic lid.

Mom and Dad hadn't stopped at a phone booth to warn the nuns of the exact time or hour of our arrival- and being unprepared, the black and white clad - agents of God's mercy on earth - scrambled to throw together a meal with leftovers from the food program. Like a bunch of cowboys on a cattle drive, the nuns stoically herded us through the wooden, double sliding-doors into the large dining room.

If you ever been in a convent you know that there are three distinct characteristics of a Catholic "Nunnery." 1) There was always a distinct smell that was a little bit musty mixed with moth balls and something like million year-old mildew...as if you could smell the dirt from the actual sandals of Jesus and other 2000-year-old relics that have been preserved from the Holy Land. 2) They were always quiet as though loud noise was forbidden and unholy. When the nuns walked you couldn't see their feet move under their long black robes, it appeared as if they floated across the floors like ghost without making any sound what-so-ever. Holiness and quietness seemed to go hand in hand. 3) Nuns never hurried. They moved slowly with a sense of deliberate purpose and never let their emotions show.  It is as though they were in the boat with Apostles being buffeted by the angry storms on the sea of Galilee and had learned their lesson long ago. Since that embarrassing outbreak of panic and emotion, they weren't going to let anything ever again -  ruffle their holy feathers.      
                         (And just for the record, to this point in history - they have succeeded).   

Dahlin kids scrambled and ran between legs and hung from the mantle and the wainscoting...mom couldn't scream at us, because it was forbidden (under clause number 2 above),  boys fought for position at the smelly oak table which was probably from the "Upper Room." When dinner came...before grace was even finished, we attacked what was set before us like vultures on fresh road kill. I want to apologize for our behavior, but when you're that hungry - no one is about to succumb to the social norms of using utensils. Why use a fork, when you can bury your face in a plate of spaghetti and suck in gobs of wet noodles and shove fists full of bread into your mouth from one hand and scoop globs of butter into your mouth at the same time with the other.

Don't judge us!  Seriously, knives and forks are just a worthless waste of time when you're starving to death. Dad was kicking us under the table and mom was giving us the angry-eye, "under the pain of mortal sin" stare - which seemed to say that if God didn't strike us dead that she would kill us later for this. She had a PHD in "Whoopology" and we're all sure to get a whooping later.

When things seemed like they couldn't get any worse... Puke Breath, who had been sitting next to Gustav, jumped from his chair and began screaming holy murder. He began patting his bottom and reaching into his pants - which we all thought was normal! I thought it was kind of rude for him to be checking in on his private parts in front to the nuns and all, but the teenager just went crazy and began running around the dining room crashing and breaking things like a Tasmanian devil.

Remember last year when the meat-bee went down his cast and he rolled around on the shore of the Kings River like the demonic? Well, this was ten times worse!
 
Nuns grabbed crucifixes and thought it was time for an exorcism. Sister Mary Catchatore pulled her skirt thingy up, exposing her Government-Jack-Boots and gave chase while clanking her heals on the hardwood floor in an unholy manner. She and three of my brothers managed to tackle Puke-Breath bringing him to the ground. He rolled and flung himself wildly as one nun threw holy water on him to see it if the devil would come out, but nothing worked. While Sister Catchatore had him pinned to the ground he reached down, unzipped his pants - forgetting that he had no underpants on and pulled his pants off. There he lay squirming and worming stark naked as the day he was born. Horror! Shrieks filled the once hallowed halls. Mom and Sister Dominique ushered my two sisters out of the room that had now been defiled.

His butt had a million red ants running to take cover with at least a hundred small inflamed blisters. He begged for mercy as embarrassed nuns - a little too enthusiastically rushed to his aid and picked them off his bare buns one by one. Gustave, just so happened to have an empty Folgers can for them to deposit the evil little critters into. "How convenient!"

If that wasn't bad enough, the late-blooming 13-year-old was in such misery, that he rolled over on to his back happily exposing all of his boy parts to the frantic and - much too helpful nuns. Speaking of worming and squiring, his worm was infested with the nasty little beast as the jolly nuns did their sacred duty in picking the Fire Ants off of his little pink poo-poo.

They figured this was the very least they could do to help the poor little boy.

Aside from everyone in the universe seeing exactly just where he was on his beginning journey into manhood, poor Puke-Breath was a miserable wreak the rest of the trip.     He had bites everywhere and I mean everywhere!  
   
Fearing we might come through town on our next visit, the Bishop asked Aunt Mary to leave the convent and was sent to the inner city of Kansas Missouri.   

Because Puke Breath couldn't sit, he had to stand in the back of the van for the entire rest of the two weeks we traveled back across country. And Sister Dominique and a couple nuns wrote a song about this little incident. 


Rejoicing over the fact that the Dahlins came and left in Il ne parle que du bon Dieu - which is French for "In a Ford Econoline van" and speaks about how  "One day the ants forced the boy to crawl
Dominique with just one prayer
Made him hear the good Lord's call"

Hey I'm only 7 and my French isn't that good!  But that is what my big brothers told me the song was all about.

"Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in. " ~ Mark Twain