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."  

   



   

Chemical Warfare: The Hazards of Living Next to the Dahlins.

So, last time we left off...contemplating the tumultuous condition of the brotherhood of mankind and the newly discovered roadkill, that one of the hippies down the street, brought to our house. Booty had found it squashed in the middle of the road in Santa Monica Rustic Canyon where he went to channel aliens with the aluminum-foil pyramid he fastened to the top of his thick curly hair.

"Dude...Bro...this is totally tubular." Booty (the surfer) said holding out the dead skunk to my brother as if handing him a million dollars.

"Dude...Cool...this is like totally groovy man." Dooh-Dooh Pants exclaimed, overjoyed at gift he was delighted to receive.

As I said before, Dooh-Dooh Pants had fancied himself as a combination of a child-of-the-earth and backwoods-mountain-man and thought that this skunk's fur would make the perfect hat - kind of like Davey Crockett's - only way more cool. Laying the squished beast out on the table on the patio, both of them realized something was missing. 

THE STINK! 

Whoever ran it over, failed to pop the stink-sacks and they were struck with the sudden revelation that special caution would have to be taken as Dooh-Dooh Pants prepared to remove the hide. This was not to be taken lightly and needed additional inspiration as the two of them decided to retreat to the hidden-hippy cannibus-cavern behind the pool and puff the "magic dragon."

"Dude" Booty said.
"Dude...Dude!" Dooh-Dooh Pants said in return, as if they were communicating deep truths of the universe.

With a new sense of carefree confidence and inconsequential frivolity, Dooh-Dooh Pants and his partner in crime emerged from the dubious ivy cave, smelling slightly of skunk themselves, with a newly hatched PLAN.

You see, the neighbors next door had the perfect house and the perfect yard and had the perfect dog. Mr. Blaser even went as far as paying for professional flea-spraying laboring under the misapprehension that he could keep the Dahlin's fleas out of his backyard. Ha...that was like thinking that refugee mosquitoes seeking asylum from the Dahlin's green pool wouldn't illegally migrate onto his pristine property.
(to the left is a picture of our mosquito breeding pond at the zenith of its crystal purity)
Spinning like a discus thrower at the Olympics, Dooh-Dooh Pants nearly fell over as he enthusiastically launched those sacks high over the ivy and into that immaculate backyard next door.

 That cuddly-cute Collie, Ginger, could not resist the inner-canine and attacked those skunk sacks with the viciousness of a Beverly Hills house wife who had been pulled over by a cop. She latched on to those gelatinous tissues filled with the liquid plague of terror and ferociously shook them like a true descendent of a wild wolf.  When the those sacks popped, Ginger went crazy...ran around the yard like she had gone blind and howled in excruciating pain.

Panicking, Barbara opened the the back door and in darted Ginger with those awful stink-sacks still wedged between teeth and gums.  The screaming began!  First it was high shrill sound of the girls screeching in horror...then everyone in the neighborhood could hear Mr. Blaser yelling out commands to catch the crazy dog that had gone totally berserk and was running a muck in the house dragging that hideous smell from room to room.

Dooh-Dooh Pants and Booty rolled on the cement ground of that patio and laughed more than they should have. Maybe this is what it meant to "frolic in the Autumn midst."

Gagging bodies began pouring out of the Blaser house with "T" shirts and towels held over their noses as if escaping a burning building. Judy carrying little Michael in her arms; Barbara with Christine.  Mrs. Nargie, across the street, called the Fire Department and Mr. Steadmen pointed to the Dahlin house and said to Mrs. Steadmen, "Its no wonder lions eat their young!" In the mayhem that followed, Ginger had managed to spread that skunk-chemical-warfare throughout every inch of every room and the Firemen made sure everyone had been thoroughly evacuated from the house.

Ginger had to be sent away to the vets for a tomato bath followed by psychological evaluation and the house was uninhabitable for the next two weeks. 

Thanks to Dooh-Dooh Pants...and his Skunk-Sack-Prank, my best friend Tommy and family got to stay at a nice nearby motel that had a built-in pool and a real jacuzzi. Tommy sneaked me into the motel pool and I got to swim in clear water that was mosquito free.

To this day, the Blasers are still wondering where their beloved collie found a skunk in the first place and  what made their stupid dog decided to attack such a formidable foe. 
 
Oh well, such is the hazard of living next to the Dahlins and I guess in a metaphorical sense...that is the hazard of living next to any neighbor - be a nation, a country, or a people group who look different, talk different or dare to think different.

Love indeed is a difficult concept to wrap our minds around...that really requires viewing others as valuable, but we can only do that in all humility that looks at others as being better than ourselves. But such is the human condition to press in on exalting self at the expense of others.       

OH... and the hairdo you see (in this picture to the left), is a story all of its own...One that takes a trip across country, which involves The PRESIDENT of the United States.

Next time!

 Until then, know that you are indeed relentlessly perused by the only perfect Love that exist in the universe!             Smile and pass it on.

Hippies and Mexican Tomato Plants

Whack… slapped the stick, three times on my outstretched rump. Seriously, do you really think for one moment that after all I had been through already, that a couple well placed eraser-bombs and several smacks on my tight little derrière was going to have any effect! I was like one of those used cars for sale that looked good on the outside, but already had a million miles on it.  While still in the "position" (last blog post) I tried my darnedest to pass gas...but to no avail, because I didn't have the superpowers that one of my older brothers, Dooh-Dooh Pants, had who so magnificently mastered. There I was, stomach churning, butt pointed at everyone I wanted to payback, but was unable to channel my gastric juices into a defensive weapon.

The year is 1968 and a lot has happened in the last two years - since the 5th grade. Obviously I lived through Sr. Godzilla, the 5th grade "Templates" (blog Post June 26th) and somehow managed to make it this far.

One brother was in Viet Nam. My oldest brother, Gustav had been Honorably Discharged from the military with some lame excuse like having bad teeth or because he had a rare blood type. Three of the other brothers - the ones who were full-fledged, long-haired, Anti-Viet-Nam-War-hippies, didn't just burn their draft cards, but sent them back to President Johnson to make an even bigger statement...

Which reminds me of our chance - impossible - real-live-encounter with the President of the United States, which took place while we were driving across country on our vacation this past summer. 

TRUE STORY

Who else in the world does this happen to?  Nobody, right?  Nobody, other than the Dahlins! We'll get to that in the next couple blog post... but, seriously... what are the mathematical probabilities of running into the Presidential motorcade in North Texas and having a chance encounter.  It is about the same, I guess of having an alien abduction in the middle of New York City.  (You're going to have to wait on that one. Oh, and add snapping turtles to the story - and it must be something like, 1:100,000,000 to the 120th power).

After what happened to John F. Kennedy... it made you wonder why LBJ, the 36th President, of the United States got out of his protected limousine and pulled his dirty rotten trick on us.

Didn't he know he was messing with the "Wolf Pack." 

By this time the Lennons were beginning to wonder off the reservation and the older boys had also begun to let their hair hang low. Pat and Billy had traversed the chasm of our tarry-asphalt street and engaged in some of the bizarre behaviors of Hotel Crazy at our pad. The virus of the hippy-bug made its way across the street, past the Blessed Virgin Mary that stood guard in their front window and spread the infection in their house. Getting into this long-haired-hippy movement, the older Lennon boys began to fit right in with the Dahlins and embraced "what my older brothers had begun cultivating" in the far reaches of the backyard - hidden behind old cars, boats that refused to float, stacks of decaying National Geographics and  lots of junk that was perfect for protecting their secret garden. My older bothers told my parents were "Mexican Tomato Plants"   Heck, I don't know why they spent so much time out there caring the trimming those plants - didn't seem to do any good. The dumb plants never did grow tomatoes - go figure!  

Last year in the Sixth Grade my oldest brother, Gustav and his girl friend, Patty, took me to Sears and bought me a really cool Tobias suit. This is the famous picture that Marilyn Monroe is holding at the top of my Blog Post (until I change it, of course).
 
My Sixth Grade felt like a"life-sentence"  with hard labor. (more about that later). But, look at how cute this little guy is!

These was my first real clothes, that weren't hand-me-down-down-down-down-downs. This didn't come with blood stains or bullet holes or 17 patches over patches... Just look at him.

LADY KILLER right!

Imagine all those six grade girls drooling all over me! I wasn't keeping count and didn't have a clue.  Look into those precious eyes that seem to be lost in deep thought. What do you supposed I was thinking at that moment? Probably didn't have anything to do with girls.  I'll bet anything that I was too busy contemplating my everyday survival to be a "player."  If I had any inkling that a girl liked me, I was so insecure that I couldn't even open my mouth. I stuttered...and most people didn't know because they thought I was just being funny and a lot of my words didn't come out right. (No one in my family listened so anyone, they all just competed for floor time and had no idea that I had speech problems - except for my dad. He kept telling me that I should learn to talk with marbles in my mouth to help my pronuncification)

And what others thought was confidence was really just nothing more than the artful-dodging of a lonely street rat - still searching for the meaning of life and wanting to hear one word spoken in my HOUSE!

Next Time - The infamous story of amateur taxidermy and the SKUNK STINK-SACKS.

Please, no one tell the Blasers - because I don't think they know how their beloved collie got a hold of these things that he dragged like a crazed werewolf into the house. 


The Beatles have a song. It's been a hard days night... but for me it has been a hard-couple years..and I feel like I've been working like a dog just to survive the pits, and the jalapenos, and the big-bang-burnie, and the fights, and the mosquitoes, and leprosy, and the Veloci-rooster and the alligator...

                                                                    Just how much farther would Markie D make it?