Lips Ablaze and Instruments of Mass Destruction

Here is another infamous story I gathered while in southern California reminiscing with one of the older boy's favorite victims.  The Wolf Pack were generous...no, not generous  - they were lavish with terribly creative pranks. John said that every time he came over he had to prepare himself for whatever the Dahlins would throw at him.  My crazy older brothers were equal opportunity offenders and nobody was safe in our house.

I can't lie and must admit that whenever I was not the one being lowered in a suitcase, shot at, buried in a pit, or dropped over a cliff  and they were busy cleverly torturing someone other than me - I was very happy and yet also felt a tinge disappointed for not getting my adrenalin fix - (That's why I figured that I must be a little retarded)!

Here is a Picture of John telling me his story... the audio however, did not get transferred, but you can see the pained look on his face.

This story like most of our stories has a long back-story...which I'll attempt to make very short. It begins somewhere between Lennon envy and The Sound of Music.

Look at the Lennons! Look at how cute they were, and all of them sing! All of them! The Lennon sisters sing like angels, The boys sing, Mimi sings and Kippy the baby brother - even he sings!  It just wasn't fair!

When God was handing out singing voices - I think the Lennons were in line first and God ran out by the time He came to the Dahlins. None of us could sing! Not one of us could hold a tone or sing a note on key!  Look at 'em...just look at them!

Look at us! Does it look like any of us can sing? 

Well, to make matters worse a couple years ago, out comes The Sound of Music. My mom saw the movie a hundred times and wished we were like the singing Von Trapp family or the Lennons - with us, it was just lemons instead.  

So my poor mom, thought that if we couldn't sing - by golly, at least we would all play a different instrument and be a 9 person orchestra. She fantasized that other mothers from Saint Marks church would come into our house and we would line up on the entry stairs and play "So long, fair-well...auf wiedersehen ...good bye" in our symphonic nine piece orchestra."  This was her dream! 

Tony with his Clarinet

Karl with his Trombone

Kris with his Coronet

Kurt with his Trumpet

Erick with his Violin and Piano

Madeline with the Viola 

Me with a squeaky hand-me down ancient Clarinet

Karin on the Piano! 

All of us taking lessons at Saint Marks...

Dude this could have been great! Except for the part about this being the Dahlins. 

The instruments were turned into weapons of mass destruction as we used them for warfare and to beat each other up with.

Besides the foul-mouthed mynah bird that cussed, our entry also had a piano, a couple other pieces of furniture and a million of these unused and banged up instruments in their dusty, old, black cases that had been piled into what looked like siege ramp that reached the top of the grand staircase. 

As John told the story, he said he was invited in by Kurt to play his trumpet!  Now mind you, this was the very place that we had electrocuted poor John in another one of our horrible pranks(Blog 7/11/13)!  There was no reason for him to say yes! He checked to make sure no electrical wires were attached to the the thing and against his better judgement he acquiesced to Kurt's nagging, persistent, insistence - And try, John did!  ONLY...

ONLY... Kurt had smeared the mouth piece with jalapenos peppers and Tabasco hot sauce! 

Obediently, but foolishly, John put his lips on the mouth piece and blew!  He blew for about a second when he threw the trumpet and howled like a lone wolf at a full moon.  The mynah bird cussed as Kurt rushed to John's rescue with a cup of water. John took the cup and hastily threw it down his gullet only to find it had been laced with more Tabasco hot sauce!   UGHHHHHhhhhhhh

The Wolf Pack cheered!  

John howled and ran around in circles like a mad dog...So as it turned out, one of our hated instruments was finally put to good use. At least, that's what the Wolf Pack thought!

I wanted to laugh, but ducked and took cover for I was having a pre-pubescent PTSD Flash back from a incident that nearly killed me when I was just a little boy! That story next time! 

Android users click here for. Paul Simon Loves Me Like a Rock

 

Sasquatch and Big Foot Frivolity.

Saturday Sept 10th 1966 continues and continues and continues... and boy does it continue!

Everyone, I am so sorry!  I've been extremely busy preparing for a new quarter of teaching and have been away from this blog for too long...so I beg your forgiveness. As a way of making amends I  have posted some pictures that I'd like to share with you...

You may have heard of the legend of The Sasquatch.. the hairy "Big Foot" of North America. Actually all that really is... are just sightings of my brothers when they are in the back-woods fishing...



You can't blame my brothers for being upset by the hillbilly paparazzi snapping pictures when they are enjoying the solitude of the quiet fishing life.



                  Can you?





 Give my brothers some privacy will you!


 There! That is one mysterious anomaly of nature -  answered.






Here is a picture of my mom combing my brother, Chewbacca's, hair!












A picture of all seven of us boys... this doesn't include... Mad Dog, Pinky or Kleghorn!
                          HaHa!

Okay, all joking and foolishness aside - I've included some real pictures of my family - "The Wolf Pack" you judge for yourself!










Hair! Flaxen, Waxen, Gleaming...Long Beautiful Hair!

Sasquatch with tuxedos... you don't see that every day!













Without the tuxedos!

What is the '60's-70's without a Volkswagon van?


                               RIGHT!?

I'm the tame one in the center, but I think you get the idea... We were a real hairy Rat Pack... true '60 and '70 hippies from the "Hippy" capital of the world... VENICE, CALIFORNIA USA!

My mom on top of a pyramid of a lot of hair.... OOOOOOOOOPS...

 Pyramid..fall down and go boom!  The Wolf Pack just playing around....

All right, I owe you a story. Why don't you take a minute to digest this, then in my very next post I will continue the epic saga of the longest day.  This is when Gherhing the Great and I get back from begin tossed around in vomit of the trunk of Gustav's race-car - to Wolf Pack Central. This is where the hippies are planning a standard prank on the little old lady next door and as an alien UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) crash lands on the famous Lennon Sister's house across the street!

 Until next time!

good bye

ha det

Hej då

au revoir

До свидания

adios

枝节，小事，附属事物。

Wiedersehen!

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!”