BEING THERE THEN

Being There Then

I made my grand entrance into the world on the ninth day of August in 1957.  Around the same time as my arrival on the planet, the Russian satellite ‘Sputnik’ completed a history making orbit of the earth and in my books that represents a suitably action packed welcome to the rat race.  The delivery room of the Port Adelaide Public Hospital was the setting for my opening performance and as it happened my screaming debut into life was a double act.  I commenced this earthly incarnation as the Yang side of male and female twins who were cursed with the added distinction of being born illegitimate.  Back in the Nineteen Fifties births that happened out of wedlock were seen as shameful events and they were mostly frowned on by the wider community.  My twin sisters name is Lesley and we are about as different as the proverbial cheese and chalk.  She is mostly introverted and docile like a spring lamb, while I am a raging extrovert lion with a restless and irrepressible spirit.  I also have an older half brother by the name of Dudley or ‘The Dud’ as I prefer to remember him.  He was the result of a short and unhappy marriage which ended in divorce before I was born.  This poor talentless dullard made my life miserable from the word go because I was confident, creative and popular while he was maladjusted, ugly and downright mean.  Throughout my childhood years and well into the teens I had to contend with his malicious bullying.  He was my first real enemy in this life but I should be grateful as he provided an early warning for the tall poppy clippers I would encounter a little further down the track.

                                                                                                                                         

Me and my twin sis.

My parents were not your standard cut of working class, child rearing citizens.  My mother is true blue ocker to the bone and my father comes from fair dinkum, wog extraction.  Somewhere along the line the old girl has distant French and English decent but the European aspects of her persona were lost among generations of colonial stock. This left her with a broad almost masculine manner and a 'roll up your sleeves buster' attitude to life.  My father and two of his brothers escaped from Hungary through Austria and came to Australia as refugees in 1952.  As it happened my old man was a widely acclaimed Theater Director who fled the oppressive clutches of communism during the Hungarian Revolution.  Shortly after arriving on our sunny shores he became involved with my mother and they set up camp in the port side township.  Like other less privileged minorities of their time my parents existed well outside the realms of wealth and opportunity.  After our departure from the maternity ward my sister and I took up residence in a tumble down, back street shack that our father had constructed from discarded building materials and the like.  The roof and walls of our humble dwelling were sealed with sheets of corrugated iron and flattened out oilcans that were attached to the trunks of small gum trees.  Our family home more closely resembled a horse shed than anything human beings might live in but Hey!, ... If our lord and savior was sheltered in a stable as an infant then it was bloody well good enough for me.  Stories I have extracted from both the Hungarian and Australian branches of the family tree suggest that my old man was quite an innovator and he would do anything to provide for his kids.  As a fast track to an instant food supply he and his brothers used to drop sticks of gelignite into the Port River and then scoop up all of the stunned and dying fish.  The mattresses we slept on as kids were hauled out of the same river and left in the sun to dry.  Around our makeshift home he developed a vegetable garden with a chook run and a bee hive and his clever handiwork combined with a steady supply of pickled fish is what kept the family fed as he moved between low paying jobs. My parents only stayed together for the first three years after I was born.  When my dear old mum called the poor guy a,“Dirty Little Wog Bastard” he ran off to the opal fields of Andamooka in the South Australian desert.  He and his brothers staked their claims and embarked on a life of scratching around in the earth looking for that million dollar vein. After years of hard labor their, ‘Land of Hope and Opportunity’ dreams were eventually to come true as their quest for the illusive ‘Rainbow Stone’ paid off. I tracked my old man down a few years ago and he was lapping up the good life on the swanky side of town.

After leaving Port Adelaide most of my early years were spent in the Housing Commission ghetto of a South Australian migrant town.  The place was called Elizabeth and it was named so after her right and Royal Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Second.  I was raised in a high crime neighborhood if ever there was one and the majority of my school friends were destined to a life of detainment within the prison system.  More often than not I was the ring leader in daring escapades that involved teachers, headmasters and eventually the law.  Every second Housing Commission duplex on our street was occupied by a single mother who was trying to cope with much the same financial burdens as our lot. Short of winning the lottery or turning to prostitution, marriage was the best option for my mother and her gaggle of highly strung girlfriends.  Each Wednesday night before the Single Parents Social Club the women in our neighborhood used to get all worked up watching ‘The Tom Jones Show’ on the telly.  They were a neurotic bunch of man crazy desperates who compared well to the sex crazed females who used to throw their undies on the stage at the Las Vegas Hilton. Some of the men that my mother met through the club were single fathers and purely platonic acquaintances. One of the more spirited among them was a mad Welshman by the name of Mick Daniel’s and he bore a remarkable resemblance to Tom Jones when he was a younger man.  He came from the same neck of the woods as the famous, hip shaking star and he was just as much the cheeky loverboy come babe magnet.   Mick had the hens club speculating that he was a long lost, illegitimate brother of their idol.  With no idea where to begin when it came to teenage sex talks the old girl made the critical mistake of asking Mick to take me aside for a little chat.  She used to look after Mick’s kids Francis and Daniel after school during the week and one day when he came to pick them up it happened.  I had long since learned to detect the little smirk that Mick wore whenever he was up to mischief and I knew that something was going down which involved me.  He delivered one of his mock punches and said in a theatrically low tone of voice, ... “Young master Steven, ... Your dear old mother has requested that we have a little man to man talk about the facts of life”.  Then he threw another punch but this one was for real.  I was back at him in my usual adolescent, punch happy way until he was rolling on the floor and begging for mercy as he nearly always did.  I liked Mick a lot.  We walked through the kitchen to the lounge room as my mother pretended to busy herself at the kitchen sink.  Mick shut the door behind us and he said that it was time for me to learn all about the realities of sex.   He saw fit to skip past the reproductive details of human sexuality and embarked on an uncensored, verbal description of the ideal female anatomy.  He was at the part where he was telling me that, “A top sort has to have dirty great knockers to keep a man turned on”, ... when all thirteen and a half stone of my mother came bursting in through the lounge room door.  Mick and I were too busy laughing to take in what she was saying but it went along the lines of, ... “I thought you were a friend you dirty rotten turncoat’”.  She called him all the low down, foul mouthed scoundrels she could think of but it was done in a semi-playful, adult kind of way.  She had a soft spot for Mick, as did we all and there was nothing he could do that would get her truly riled.  As the years of single parenthood crept forward my mother became desperate to provide a better life for her kids and she pursued any unattached male in the quest to snare a bread winner. 

It’s my theory that economic pressure and failed attempts at romance were the things that eventually sent her over the edge.  She was noticeably discouraged with each blundered attempt to land a hubby and one abruptly ended relationship followed another.  With every bust up she became more bitter and it manifested in a deep seated resentment towards men.  Apparently I have inherited the lions share of my old mans 'up and at em' Hungarian genes. Throughout my childhood years the old bitch would jump at any excuse to rubbish him by saying things like,“Your old man’s a good for nothing bastard, and you are going to end up just like him”.  The stupid old fart always said that one day she was going to marry a “Rich farmer” and we would go and live out in the country.  She interviewed many an unsuspecting weekend visitor and dreamed of the day that “Mr. Right” would scoop her up on his tractor and take her putting off into the sunset.  Whenever a prospective suitor came calling myself and my siblings were instructed to remain on our best behavior so as to make a good impression.   I twigged early in the game that the interviewee’s wanted to spend some time alone with her so to get us kids out of their hair for a while I perfected ingenious ways of scamming lollies, ice creams and soft drinks.  The most effective strategy by far was an over the top performance every time a commercial for one of the fore mentioned products came on the television screen.  She was wise to my profitable little enterprise but it fitted in with her plans so I got away with it. 

One of the most memorable men friends the old girl had was a guy called Sam.  He was the pick of the bunch as far as I was concerned because he was so big and powerful.  And to top things off he was a Fireman.  Like any impressionable kid I would say,“When I grow up I want to be a fireman, just like you Sam”.  My favorite show as a kid was Superman and Sam fit the bill perfectly.  Built like a footy player he was everything a man is supposed to be to an eight year old, daddyless kid.  Sam straightened his broad, muscular shoulders in a true ‘Superman-ish’ way and he delivered advice worthy of any passing father figure.“Stevie, ... When you grow up, ... don’t aim to be a Fireman, ... You aim to be the Fire Chief”.  I think that juicy little snippet of information was the most eye opening revelation to come my way during the entirety of my childhood years.  It’s a bit like saying,“A mans reach should exceed his grasp”.  It’s also very similar to the high and aspiring concept behind ‘The Impossible Dream’.  If my dysfunctional family environment was anything to go by I had to conclude that human beings can be a bloody unevolved and dangerous breed.  After Sam’s well intended advice I must have decided that the best way to get on in this world is to become …

‘King of the Bastards

….

Fun in Hell

Prophets come and profits go

they hang them on crosses and gun them down

they wait till the artist is dead and gone

then they sell all his work when he’s not around.

His deciples wailed and gnashed their teeth

claiming we have been chosen to preserve this tale

The whole world must know of this brilliant man

then the paraphernalia went on sale.

                                                     And still to this day they worship their idol

to the poor congregation ... his story they sell

and they wait for the hour of judgement to come

and they all agree ... it’s fun in Hell.

And it came to pass it became a religion

then in no time at all it became confused

the original words became so out of date

and words out of context are always misused.

So misused in fact that the last edition

that by those of the faith was not understood

now the scriptures are gathering dust on the shelf

and their Saviour didn’t come like he said he would.

And still to this day they worship their idol

to the poor congregation ... his story they sell

and they wait for the hour of judgement to come

and they all agree ... it’s fun in Hell.

The rich men bought their way into Heaven

gold Rolls Royces and ivory towers

while the workers at the end of the unemployment line

complain they’ve been waiting for hours ... and hours.

Poor confused parents cause children to stumble

and they never locate the kingdom within

while the star of the show shouts down from the pulpit

You were born to suffer ... you were born to sin.

And still to this day they worship their idol

to the poor congregation ... his story they sell

and they wait for the hour of judgement to come

and they all agree ... it’s fun in Hell.

When I was a very young child at the Salisbury North Infant School I got my first glimpse of the rewards that can come from being a talented young bastard.  In art classes one day the teacher introduced our group to the wonders of Plasticine.  Like all of the other kids I set about mashing the colors together into a mostly grey, streaky blob but unlike the rest I had a specific reason for doing so.  I kept a ball of white Plasticine separate from the grey stuff to be used on the finishing touches. By rolling chunks of the grey mass into balls and individual lengths I molded a majestic bull elephant in full charge with a raised trunk and large flapping ears. I also made an eagle with outstretched wings which resembled one of those American eagle paperweights you see.  The ball of white Plasticine was used to construct the beak of the eagle and his pointed talons, along with the tusks of the elephant and his intricately sculpted toenails.  The class teacher noticed that my childish creations were a little too advanced for someone of such a tender age.  She promptly notified the Headmistress of my achievement and all of a sudden I was the centre of everyone’s attention.  The South Australian Department of Education were summoned to our school and I was given a special IQ test.  I was later presented with a photograph of the models and on the back of the snapshot the Headmistress had included a friendly little note.

Dear Steven.

Here is the photograph that I promised you. Your outstanding works of art will remain on the mantelpiece of our staff room for as long as I am the Headmistress of this school.  We are so proud of you.                                                                                               

Mrs. Wilkinson.

Proudly showing off my Plasticine models.

What an amazing blast of encouragement for one so young.  It didn’t matter how much anyone tried to defame me from then on because I had been told by life that I was special and important.  That childhood experience triggered my artistic awakening and it has driven my creative evolution ever since.  Quite often as a child I had the ever present hens club transfixed by my vivid imagination.  Barely stopping for a breath I could run off far fetched stories about little characters who lived in imaginary settings and attained unworldly achievements.  I suppose I lapped up the attention of my mothers girlfriends as a replacement I for the lack of encouragement I received from her. “Stop showing off Steven”  burns in my memory still and it’s taken more than four decades to convince myself that art is not a crime.  I should have been born about thirty years later when schools for gifted children were an everyday affair.  My Mothers neurosis included a militant dedication to the preposterous teachings of the church.  If ever the term 'blind faith' was applicable to anyone it was to her.   Whenever there was kid trouble in the house each screaming match would be followed by an irrelevant moral sermon.  One of her part time jobs was to clean the Saint John’s Church in Salisbury North. 

Our family were regular Sunday attendants at this ancient house of prayer and she scored the job because the parish vicar took pity on her.  Father Reglar conspired to keep her meager earnings a secret from the Department of Social Welfare and that unholy deception was the thing that first made me wise to the hypocrisies of the church.  A steadfast determination to live a righteous existence actually landed her a job at my primary school in the role of a religious instruction teacher.  She applied her advanced acting skills to the task of appearing holy to the kids, but I knew all of her dark and insidious secrets.  I thanked my lucky stars that RI only lasted for half an hour each week, as I wouldn’t have been able to stand the peer group slander if it was any more.  The old girls theosophical obsessions began shortly after the death of my kid sister Susan.   The poor little mite was the third child to be sired by my father, but she died at the age of three.  Susan had diseased kidneys and medical science had not yet developed the necessary transplant procedures or kidney machines.  The night that Susan was buried at the Spain’s Road cemetery her grave was exhumed by devious and scheming persons unknown.  The Adelaide CIB investigated the situation and came to the horrific conclusion that the body had been dug up by a group of 'Black Magic Worshippers' who were operating in the area.  Apparently this assembly of deranged individuals used to scan the obituary columns in search of recently departed virgin souls with whom they could carry out their despicable deeds.  The police informed my mother that a number of similar incidents had occurred around the northern suburbs in the last few weeks.   They assured her that they were doing everything in their power to catch the culprits, but it was impossible to guard the graves of every newly deceased child.  Susan’s body was exposed to the starlit sky as the body snatchers performed their sick little ritual, but apart from that she was not molested in any other way.  Those of us left living were.   Our little sister was reburied in the same location at a ceremony attended by the investigating police.  Fortunately the grave remained untampered with and it became the regular haunt of my mother throughout the years that followed.  I remember her telling stories of how when she was cleaning the church she would be visited by an apparition of Susan. The child was reported to be winged like a baby cherub angel as she  hovered around the cob webbed rafters of Saint John’s.

When I was a kid we had a black and white Springer Spaniel called Mickey.  The stupid mutt used to go walkabout from our home at every opportunity and the hunt would be on all over the neighborhood until he was found.  One time he went missing for three days before I eventually tracked him down.  During the lunch break at school one of my brothers mates pulled me aside with some devastating news.  He put his arm around my shoulder and told me that my dog was laying dead out on the highway.  My brothers mate was called Allen Lawson and he used to come over to our house quite often.  He knew how much I loved that dog and because he delivered the news with such genuine compassion he became my mate as well.  I left school and ran up the busy highway to where my dog was.  As I approached the stink was unbearable and I had to wrap a handkerchief around my nose to get close to the corpse.  Mickey had been dumped in a vacant block and covered with a cardboard box.  I found an old potato sack and commenced to wrestle his putrefying body into it.  At the age of nine it was not easy to hoist the bag onto my shoulder but I was determined I would get the stinking carcass home and give my best friend in the world a proper burial.  As I was performing my somber duty I heard the front gate close. 

It so happened that my mother had finished work and she was walking up the driveway.  She came upon me smashing into the rock hard dirt at the back of our garden, sweating like a pig and crying my eyes out.  The clay pan soil was so badly neglected that I had to use an axe to excavate a barely adequate hole.  After I had laid Mickey down and covered him over I used the head of the axe to bang in a metal stake next to the grave.  To this I attached a wooden slat from an old Woodies lemonade crate and it bore the name of my pal fingered on with boot polish.  What happened next might give the clearest example of how blind to reality my mothers religion had made her.  I was standing over Mickey’s grave lost in my own grief and with no form of physical contact what so ever she dropped one of her holier than thou tru-ism’s on me. All it did was further torture my aching young soul, ... “Steven, because of what you have done today, ... your sins are all forgiven”.  The woman was so completely insensitive to the pain I was suffering that she used my crisis to spout her pre-packaged, Christian, bullshit philosophy.

Me at fifteen.

There were two guys I used to hang around with at school who went by the names Desi Parker and Rob Striker.  These two were crime statistics just waiting to happen and I was the impressionable young dropkick who laughed at all of their jokes.  I was initiated into the triangle of trouble with a swig of Johnny Walkers whisky in the toilet block at school.  It came from a silver hip flask that belonged to Rob and he also had a silver cigarette case.  Rob’s whole rough neck family were associated with the ‘Iriquoy’ Motorcycle Club and it showed in the grime encrusted jeans and sleeveless denim jackets he wore to school.  Rob’s dirty locks hung down well past his shoulders and he was the first of our group to show any signs of facial hair.  We were all about twelve and a half years old at the time.   Desi lived up road at the end of my street.  He was a hell raiser of the first order and one of the most manipulative characters I have ever met.  We were little more than kids about to enter our teens but these guys were streetwise beyond their years.  If memory serves me well it was Desi who slipped me my first cigarette and it was Rob who showed me my first ever girlie pinup.  Desi and Rob introduced me to a side of life that represented real freedom compared to the stifling dictates of school life and the restrictive crap I had to deal with at home.  Whenever the old girl was absent from the home front it was my brother Dudley’s task to enforce the household rules.  Although he and I hated each other with fierce devotion it was still possible to negotiate little deals.  I worked out how to take advantage of the fact he was so bloody lazy and in time I had him wrapped him around my little finger.  I would perform the most hated of his household and gardening chores in exchange for a blind eye to whatever mischief I was planning.  Once he was sufficiently bribed and silenced I would meet up with my mates in shopping centers, pool halls and the carpark at the local skating rink.  The most frequent of our hangouts was the female basketball courts.  This is where we pursued tribal bonding rites and watched the girls jumping high into the air for the ball.  The odd glimpse of a frilly nicker or an exceptionally bouncy set of boobs was all it took to get us hooting and hollering as a pack. 

One night a couple of the lads rolled up in a two tone FB Holden sedan with an older guy called Roger at the wheel.  They asked if anyone wanted to go for a cruise and I was the first idiot to bundle into the car.  Desi and Rob managed to scramble in beside me and they had to use their boots to deter the others as they attempted to get the back door shut.  Our driver gunned it and took off in a loudly applauded circle of smoking rubber.  We cruised around for about three hours and made short stops at most of our regular spots.  At the skating rink we met up with some girls who wanted a lift home.  The three of them had to squeeze in tightly among the rest of us and we became a giggling, squirming tumble of delinquent fun, as we sorted out who was trying to race off who.  The car radio was busted which left heaps of room for me to get the gang singing.  They all joined in when I started belting out ‘Brown Sugar’ by the Stones and by the time I got around to Black Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’ the windows were all fogged over.  It’s a bloody good job the girls only lived up the road because I was running out of breath and I had a hard on that was starting to take up extra room.  We dropped the girls off at one of their homes after awkward and hurried attempts at seduction had failed.  Roger did a screaming broad side as we left their street to the barking of dogs and the howls of the crew within.  We narrowly avoided the path of a passing cop car by making a quick right hand turn up a side street.  Shortly after the cops had passed Roger made it known that we were driving a stolen car in a joking and off hand kind of way. 

Desi, Rob and I pricked our ears up at this news and we were quick to use it as a test of courage and solidarity.  Laughing it off as inconsequential we each took a man sized swig from a flagon of Penfolds Hock that was passed over from the front seat.  The following morning none of us attended school as we had made prior arrangements to meet at the pool hall.  Roger was the last to arrive and we all breathed a sigh of relief when he finally rolled up. If he hadn’t we would have risked wagging school in vain.  As we were jumping into the car Roger informed us that we were,“Gonna go cruising out to the Barossa Valley”.  He said that he knew a place where you could nick flagons and bottles of booze from behind a winery.  All were in agreement so we headed up the Main North Road towards the wine district.  Along the way we converged on a number of small general stores and worked as a pack to fill our pockets.  The shop attendants were kept busy with one prank or another until we had a well concealed bounty of sweets, soft drinks and ciggies. 

As we approached the arch at the Gateway to the Barossa there was an almighty crunch in the back end.  One of the back wheels came flying off and rolled away.  Then in a banging, bouncing and sliding splash of mud we rolled down an embankment and went through a barbed wire fence.  On coming to a final stop the car was bogged in a paddock that was home to a startled and irate bull.  The FB was quickly abandoned as all but Roger went scrambling up the slope.  When the bull had retired to a secluded corner of the paddock Roger got out to assess the damage.  There was a spare wheel in the boot but it was flat and the rim was badly bent.   With no money to our names there was little hope of salvaging the car so we just left it there.  The five of us followed Roger up the road to Tanunda where he said he could score the plonk. We waited around in a blackberry patch not far from the Chateau Tanunda winery and when he returned he had two bottles of sherry in his shoulder bag.  All but one of us drank and laughed as we reflected on the excitement of the day and went out of our way to impress Roger.  The first signs of paranoia had started to show in the behaviour of the one among us who hadn’t shared in the plonk. His name was Rodney and he was a bit younger than the rest of us. The little drip was often the target of our scorn at school for being such a hopeless dweeb.  Amid his little panic attack Rodney blurted out,“If we all get busted, nobody is allowed to dob on the others”.  We just called him a sniveling little chicken and thought nothing further of it.  Roger said we would attract the attention of the cops if we all traveled together so it was agreed to split up into smaller groups for the hitchhike back to Elizabeth.  Desi and Rob set off together as did Roger and one of the other guys.  I was landed with Rodney who’s constant jittery chatter started to get on my nerves.  In the end I left him on the dusty turn off to One Tree Hill and made my way home alone.   It was well after dark when I strolled in the door and there was hell to pay from the old lady.  I made up a bullshit story about how my friends pushbike had been stolen after school and I was out helping him look for it.  I got off lightly with no television for a week and a couple of nicely deflected slaps around the back of the head.  From the confinement of my room I knew it was getting close to bedtime because I could hear the end of ‘Bob Dyers Pick A Box’ on the telly.  There was a solid and authoritative knock on the front door then I heard the voice of my mother conversing with a man.  As I looked out through the slightly opened bedroom door I saw that two burly policemen were standing there talking to her.  Shit, ... I’m busted.  I was promptly hauled out of my room and questioned by the coppers as the old girl went into one of her over the top 'woe is me' performances.  The next thing I knew I was bundled into a paddy wagon and driven to the Elizabeth Police Station.  I was the fourth to arrive after Rodney, Desi and Rob.  It didn’t take long after that before Roger and the other lads joined us.  Apparently Rodney had confessed the whole thing to his mother and run off the names of all who were involved.  Each of us besides Roger received a three year good behaviour bond for the illegal use of a motor vehicle.  As well as getting busted for stealing the car Roger got charged with corrupting minors from which he embarked on his first taste of prison life.  I was assigned a Probation Officer by the court and for three terrible years his office was the only place I could go unaccompanied by another person.  Mr. Macinnon was an easy going Scottish bloke who seemed to have a genuine interest in my welfare.  I had to see him three times a week and as soon as my visits were over I was allowed a mere half hour to ride my bike home.  Those brief periods when I traveled to and from Mr. Macinnon’s office were so precious and they were the thing that first taught me how to appreciate freedom.  Riding like the wind I could cover the distance between my home and the probation office in about fifteen minutes which allowed a little time to stop for a smoke at the olive grove.  Within the long abandoned olive plantation there was a big old peppercorn tree who’s branches and leaves were my private sanctuary and witness to my first real attempts at singing.   My voice was just starting to break and the full vocal range was beginning to emerge. I kept a battered transistor radio under my pillow which played the earliest hits of Neil Diamond and Glen Campbell. They were my two favorite singing teachers and I could mimic most of their songs word perfect and accurate in the timing.  From high in the branches of my secret perch I used to fantasize about singing my way to stardom and I dreamed of the many pleasures life as a self consenting adult would bring.  My little arrangement with Dudley came to an abrupt end after my brush with the law.  I couldn’t get away with a trick anymore when the old girl was away from the house and the restrictions of life weighed heavy on my restless teenage spirit. 

There was a group of hippies living directly across the street from us and the goings on around their colorful den offered the most interest in my narrowly defined world.  From a well worn position on the front step I could take in their stoned antics and the thing that most attracted my attention was the ever present guitar music.  Lee Turner was a twenty one year old self confessed alcoholic and a chronic pot smoker.  He looked like a classic ‘Furry Freak’ adorned by an afro-mass of blazing red hair.  It was tied back with a red bandanna and he wore paisley patches on his tattered jeans.  Embroidered waistcoats from far off exotic lands were his trademark garment and they probably never saw the inside of a washing machine.  Lee got immense pleasure from just strumming his splintery old guitar on the front veranda of their house.  He played along to the radio music that filtered through from his bedroom and over time had built a repertoire of the most popular anthems of the day.  The stripped and rusting shell of an FJ Holden adorned his pokey little front yard and someone had decorated the crumbling wreck with painted flowers and sixty’s slogans like, ... ‘Peace Man’, ... ‘Groovy’ and ‘Far Out’.  Lee circled the wreck lost in concentration as he struggled to finger the chords and once he had mastered the music of a tune he would start to sing along in a husky, but well controlled way.  I got to watch him going through the whole process of learning a new song and it provided my first introduction to a creative process I would later embrace myself.  Quite often there would be other guitarists around and Lee would teach them the songs he had learned.  The other players picked up the chord patterns in no time at all then sweet vocal harmonies would encircle Lee’s powerful, masculine voice. 

Invariably the hippy musicians would lubricate their practice sessions with Coopers Ale and Christ knows what else until it became an ‘Out of it’ cacophony of laughing jumping gnomes.  My mother used to say if she ever caught me associating with those,“No good hippy bludgers across the road” she would thrash me to within an inch of my life.  The fun loving ways of our peacenik neighbors offered a tantalizing glimpse of freedom and I knew that I had to get closer to the action for a better look.  I had by now turned sixteen and the end of my probation period was just around the corner.  At the risk of breaking my good behavior bond and landing in some bloody horrible reform school I started to push the boundaries of my confinement.   On stinking hot summer nights it was often the case that we were allowed to lay our sleeping bags out in the back yard.  Lesley never used to do it because she didn’t like mosquitoes, so all I had to contend with was Dudley.  His favorite spot was on the back porch and mine was under a concrete structure that supported a corrugated iron water tank. Many is the time we went to bed with half empty, rumbling stomachs and the gardens in our neighborhood were blessed with an assortment of well laden fruit trees.  Dudley would deviate slightly from his dobbing and story telling ways if I hopped the back fence in search of a late night snack.  I knew where all of the best fruit trees were and I could cover a few back yards in a very short time.  While avoiding a host of barking dogs and other hazards I would fill an onion bag with apples, nectarines, apricots and the odd bunch of grapes. The whole procedure normally took about fifteen minutes but I would stretch it out so that Dudley learned to expect me back in half an hour.  As soon as the bag was half full I would quietly stash it behind our back fence without letting my slumbering nemesis know I had returned.  If there were any lights on in the hippy den I would pop across the road to see what they were up to.   As I poked my head in through the bead curtains of their back door I’d find Lee and his friends sitting around on bean bags playing guitars and singing.  Psychedelic album covers were spread out all over the lounge room floor and there was only ever enough room for me to hang in the kitchen doorway.  The walls were decorated with psychedelic posters and the smell of incense filled the room.  The record the hippies played along with most often was ‘The Woodstock Album’ and it was so badly thrashed there was hardly an unscratched groove left on it.  ‘Freedom’ by Richie Havens was their favorite track and it was the one that Lee used to sing the best.  I identified strongly with that particular chant to liberty and he bellowed it out with all the conviction of a tortured slave. 

Sometimes ... I feel like a motherless child ... Oh! Sometimes I feel like a motherless child

and I’m a long ... long way from home.

Freedom ... Freedom ... Freedom ... oh! Freedom ... Freedom ... Freedom ... Freedom ...

Richie Havens.

I only ever had time to hear one or two of their songs before I had to go scampering back home, but that was more than enough to justify the risk.  Once Dudley had received his share of the fruit I would settle back in my sleeping bag, eat my fill and then smile myself to sleep. I dreamed of the day that I could dress like the hippy musicians and sing to my hearts content.  Lee and his friends were the best thing that could have happened while I was living through such bleak times and their late night jam sessions offered a peek into a lifestyle that would later become my own.  There’s a laughable irony to the whole story which casts my mother as an unintentional savior.  By trying to keep me away from the ungodly influence of the hippies she unknowingly pointed the way to a life of close association with music and the counter-culture.

‘Gee, ... Thanks  Ma!’

Through her dealings with the local welfare agencies the old girl came in contact with a most agreeable fellow called Tom Wright who was the State President of a crowd known as ‘Birthright’.  Mr Wright came around to interview mum for some additional family support which was to be provided by his organisation.  After she had told him about my trouble with the law some early pencil drawings were pulled out from under the bed.  Mr Wright was very impressed by what he saw and he offered to sponsor me for junior art classes in a kind gesture that was separate to the family support.  The special treatment I received from Mr. Right really got on Dudley’s goat and my doses of big brotherly intimidation were increased henceforth.  Not only did that wonderful old bloke pay for my artistic tuition out of his own pocket, but he used to personally pick me up each week and take me to the classes.  They were held in a run down, two storey weatherboard shack which had my second favorite peppercorn tree growing out the front.  Mr. Right listened receptively to my dreams of musical stardom and he made sure we always arrived earlier than the others so I could sit in my tree practicing the songs I was learning from the hippies.  The Art Teacher was a wonderful eccentric by the name of Rose Hadland and she was a personal friend of Mr. Wright.  I soon found out that his passion was landscape painting and as it happened he took classes under Rose as well.  Each week when he picked me up after art classes he would praise my work and get truly excited as he did.  I had seen some of his paintings in the hallway of the studio and in my opinion they were a plain and lifeless waste of canvas.  I never told him that because he was so encouraging and it might have put an end to my weekly escape from home.  My first ever attempt at painting with oils was an Aboriginal tribesman that I copied from the National Geographic.  Mr. Wright was astounded by the accuracy of his skin tone and the shading that I had applied.  As we sat in his car out the front of my house he said if I stuck at it one day I would make a, ….“Fine Artist”.

With my painting at the art class.

The summer holidays were always a time to look forward to.  My mothers sister Cynthia and her husband Ainslie had a shack at Blanchetown on the banks of the River Murray.  This is where my family would go for about three weeks each year and it’s a place that holds some of my fondest childhood memories.  Uncle Ainslie is a high ranking representative of the South Australian Scouts Association and his riverside shack was often the venue for scouting activities and the like.  In his spare time Ainslie used to build ply and fibreglass kayaks which were stacked in a long, metal, canoe rack out the front.  From his finely crafted assortment of flat water vessels I could take my pick and hit the water. They were mostly single person kayaks, which meant some sweet and unmonitored moments alone.  Once I had the canoe in the water I would cross the river like a knife through butter and then ease it to a gradual stop in a big lagoon on the other side.   There were white parrots watching me from the ghostly branches of dead, water bound gum trees and pelicans were circling high in the thermals.  An eagle was scanning the terrain for his next meal and I knew I was being observed by a million eyes.  I moved as little as possible as I paddled in and after coming to a dead stop in the center of the billabong I slapped the water with the oar.  An explosion of life would take place all around me as the dead silence was shattered in a myriad of sounds.  Cockatoos and parrots taking flight and screeching to the high heavens.  Lizards and water rats scurrying from the banks and submerged bushes like liberated escapees.  A long brown snake slithering through the green water in the same endless, winding motion as the river that was it’s home.  Not only was a place to sample freedom but my first real insight into the wonders of the natural world.  My two older cousins Colin and Laurie were forever taunting me and trying to get me to do things that they knew would land me in trouble.  Once when I was about ten they almost got me killed with one of their stupid pranks.  There was a large, half submerged tree trunk leaning from the riverbank into the water and I was on strict instructions to swim only on the shallower side of the log.  My cousins were diving from the fallen tree into the deeper water as I paddled close to the bank and they started daring me to have a go.  Not one to ignore a challenge I scrambled up onto the log and dived in.  I surfaced ok and started an awkward swim back towards the log.  The trouble started when I realized that my feet could not touch the bottom.  The current was moving fast which further complicated things and my clumsy attempts at a breast stroke got me nowhere.  When I started going under and gasping for breath they must have thought that I was horsing around, because that’s the sort of thing I always did.  My uncle Ainslie just happened to be passing and he noticed the surefire signs of a drowning kid.  As I was going down for the last time he jumped in and dragged me to safety.  He was really pissed off with the three of us because he forgot to take his wallet out of the pocket of his shorts. Soggy pound notes had to be hung above the old Kookaburra stove to dry out  and from then on my actions became the focus of increased family scrutiny.

The Elizabeth Town Center shopping complex was an important part of my teenage experience.  It’s home to the Octagon Theater at which I saw Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs playing in the first live venue I ever attended.  The first thing I ever shoplifted came from the center shops and it was a 45 single of the Beatles singing, ‘Roll over Beethoven’.  I used to hang around that shopping center whenever I wagged school and it was the first place I ever kissed a girl.  The main entrance to the shopping complex was marked by a large fountain which was a regular meeting place for the gang before we got busted.  To the left of the fountain and to the right there were stairs leading into the upper levels and these were also key locations for our loitering pastimes.  At the top of the stairs on the left was a smoky poolroom which was often the scene of violent youth clashes. On the other side of the dual staircases there was a ballroom dancing club where the better behaved kids could be found on the weekends.  The dancing instructor was a funny old party boy known as Charlie Bannister and he was also a member of my mothers single parents club.  Among his weekly dance club activities Charlie used to hold special classes for the kids of the single parents.  After my trouble with the law I was enrolled in his classes as part of the campaign to make me a fine upstanding young citizen.  The ballroom dancing classes were held on Friday nights and they were to become a much treasured escape from the homefront.  They offered the closet thing to adult life I had sampled to date and I was partnered on the dance floor by some very attractive fourteen to sixteen year olds.  As well as the more traditional dances we had to endure I learned the fox trot, the tango and the quick step to fifty’s classics like, ‘Rock Around The Clock’, ... ‘Hound dog’ and, ... ‘The Twist’.  When first I started ballroom dancing I was an undersized little twerp who was only invited to dance when they were low on numbers.

Within twelve months of my first lesson I shot up in height by about a foot and all of a sudden the girls were making googly eyes at me from across the room.  Giggling and squirming they would scheme to get me on the dancefloor and this is where I first learned how to play hard to get.  I was a bloody good dancer and those sturdy Hungarian genes had started to surface in my adolescent looks and physique. In the time slot that was allocated to rock and roll Elvis Presley would invariably come blasting out of the speakers and I used to mimic the gyrating hip movements of our hero from under a dance floor light. Sweating teenyboppers would break free of their partners and form a circle around me as I showed them how it was done to ‘Jailhouse Rock’ or ‘Hound dog’.    They would clap me on with a fierce, untamed passion and Charlie would always let me continue until I had finished my dance routine.  He often said I could be the next Gene Kelly if I stayed away from those troublemakers in the poolhall.  During my Court Ballroom days I got the first indication I might have what it takes to become famous. They used to hold a talent contest as part of the end of year festivities and I signed myself in to do a spot.   The only real competition I had to contend with was a girl called Norma Henry who sang a version of ‘Over the Rainbow’. It got the judges squirming with delight but that was because she was so bloody cute and adorable.  My turn came around a couple of acts later and I hit them with the most sincere version of ‘Something’ by 'The Beatles' I could come out with.   As luck would have it they called it a draw for first place and I sang a duet of ‘Bridge over Troubled Waters’ with Norma to close the show.  Our dance classes came to an end for the year as ‘The Last Waltz’ by Engelbert Humperdink echoed out from the ballroom.   As was his way Charlie turned a blind eye to the love tinkering teenagers who were smooching on the outside balcony overlooking the town center.  Norma and I were among them and we kissed like invincible celluloid heroes until the final note of the song said it was time to go home.

‘I fell in love with you, the last waltz should last forever’.