My dad, Mellow Hildow
 
Joe Hildebrand
Friday, April 11, 2008 at 05:26pm

WHEN I was growing up I always wanted to be a good man. A righteous man. A strong man.
Indeed, my No. 1 role model was Superman, followed closely by Optimus Prime and Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat.
It was the little things for which I craved a mentor: How to kick a football, how to change a tyre, how to earn a living.
It was not, despite my father’s wish for me to follow in his footsteps, to be a folk singer. (Incidentally, I am reminded here of the great and timeless classic: Q: What’s the difference between a jazz guitarist and a pepperoni pizza? A: A pepperoni pizza can feed a family of four.)
Of course, as the saying goes, you can choose your friends but you can’t sleep with them unless they say it’s OK first.
And as the other saying goes, folk singers are freaky cats who dig a fresh sound while just listening to the words, man, the words.
Consider this spoken word offering from the iconic British folk artist Donovan in 1968:
The continent of Atlantis was an island which lay before the great flood in the area we now call the Atlantic Ocean.
So great an area of land, that from her western shores those beautiful sailors journeyed to the South and the North Americas with ease, in their ships with painted sails.
To the east Africa was a neighbour, across a short strait of sea miles.
The great Egyptian age is but a remnant of The Atlantian culture.
The antediluvian kings colonised the world.
All the Gods who play in the mythological dramas.
In all legends from all lands were from fair Atlantis.
Knowing her fate, Atlantis sent out ships to all corners of the Earth.
On board were the Twelve:
The poet, the physician, the farmer, the scientist, the magician and the other so-called Gods of our legends.
Though Gods they were _
And as the elders of our time choose to remain blind
Let us rejoice and let us sing and dance and ring in the new
Hail Atlantis!
Now imagine the guy reciting that was your dad.
(If you’re having difficulty picturing that just type the words “Donovan” and “Atlantis” into YouTube. It looks like he escaped from Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory and was kidnapped by pixies on the way out.)
It was a vision of this order that greeted me on paternal visitation days when my dad used to pick me up from school.
This could have been an embarrassing moment in front of my Year 7 chums but, mercifully, his largely sequinned attire was obscured by a customised rainbow-coloured Mini Moke with “The Hildebrands” emblazoned on the side in giant yellow letters.
Even so, some of my peers were able to make the link between my parentage and the car, which they playfully christened “The Gaymobile”.
In fact, it always slightly puzzled me as to why he picked me up at all considering his new wife sat in the only passenger seat and I had to hang on to the towbar like Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future (minus the skateboard).
My dad would then regale me with heroic tales from his youth, such as the Vietnam War years (spent in Canada), the Million Man March to Washington (spent in Colorado) and the time he stopped an off-duty policeman from picking on his fourth wife by jumping out from behind a couch, waving his hands in the air and saying, “bad vibes, bad vibes”.
It was in the course of such soul-searching adventures that my father realised his true calling, which was to follow around a man called Wavy Gravy who drove a big orange bus.
This was a highly influential period in my dad’s life and that of his second wife. It also produced his now-immortalised line: “When she wouldn’t come down from the tree I kind of knew the marriage was over.”
(This is not to be confused with his second most famous utterance, when he told the officiating priest at my baptism: “I dunno, it was her idea.")
Despite such a rich history, there was something missing in my father’s parenting approach - largely, it has to be said, him.
For years I felt that I had missed out on the chance of being raised by a real man.
But then one day as I was kicking a football, shotgunning a VB and jump-starting a Kingswood - all at the same time - that I realised I had been raised by a real man after all. And I’d just like to say to him: Thanks Mum.