"Why do you always sing Dean Martin songs in the shower?"

Hey pallies, Aussies are certainly turnin' up more and more often showin' that they are truly Dino-lovin' Dino-devotees for sure......'cause here is our second Dino-post from down under this very Dino-week. From the official Sydney Morning Herald blog comes this piece of Dino-literature written by Australian actor Mr. William McInnes 'bout how he is followin' in the Dino-diggin' footsteps of his father.

Both of Mr. McInnes' parents dug our Dino, and it is clear that McInnes does himself...declarin' "All good songs sound like Dean Martin songs." And as a good father, he is tryin' to pass on the Dino-devotion to his own boy and girl pallies.
To read this in it's original format, again, click on the title of this Dino-gram.

How very refreshin' to read this true epic of Dino-devotin' bein' passed from generation to generation. I say my thanks to Mr. McInnes for showin' how truly important lovin' our Dino is in passin' on solid values to the next gen.

Searched for some sort of Aussie Dino-tune to pass on...and what I found is a particular fav Dino-clip of mine that has our Dino and Mr. George Gobel doin' a funny sketch as Mr. George sings "Tie Me Kangeroo Down." Enjoys the Dino-fun pallies and remembers to keep passin' on the Dino-devotion to your next generation...DINO FOREVER!!!!! Dino-delightedly, DMP


In my father's footsteps

WILLIAM MCINNES
January 13, 2010 - 9:58AM



Special times ... William McInnes with his daughter Stella (left) and her friend Grace. Photo: Jason South

What began as a walk to the supermarket for actor William McInnes and his children becomes a philosophical stroll down memory lane - a reminder of the inevitability of change and the endurance of parental love.

Early evening, walking with my son, my daughter and my dog along our street to the local supermarket. My son has a part-time job, packing shelves and doing things teenage schoolboys do at part-time jobs they have at the local supermarket.

My daughter asks me, "Why do you always sing Dean Martin songs in the shower?"

"They're not all Dean Martin songs," I tell her.

"Then why do they sound the same?" laughs my son.

"All good songs sound like Dean Martin songs," I say.

Both my parents liked Dean Martin. I laugh. We have lived in this street all my children's life.

The houses, almost all, have been or are in the process of being renovated. The street is quiet but is full of the kind of activity so many streets like this across Australia see: a builder's skip full of rubbish, people in the garden finishing off the weekend by weeding and clearing, some kids using a wheelie bin out in the street as wickets in a game of street cricket. A car turns into the street, chugs towards the players and a cracking voice calls out the timeless warning of the suburbs. "Car coming!" Wickets are wheeled to the side gutter to let the car pass. Outside one house, a plumber's van. It's Sunday evening. Time and a half. The plumber will charge extra.

It makes me think of fathers. Many years ago when I was, I think, as old as my son, a friend was told by an uncle of his that if you ever wanted to get a cheap deal from a tradesman, shake hands and press a certain knuckle on his hand. "If he's a Freemason mate, he'll look after you."

I had no idea what a Mason was but I told my father. "Oh for Christ's sake, why would you do that?" he sighed.

"To get looked after."

My father told me that I should never pretend to be something just to gain a bit of advantage. "If anyone wants to be something then let them but just don't try and bullshit your way in to be cut a bit of slack. Do that and you're a drongo."

He shook his head and sighed. "Masons."

Nearly 20 years later, my son is a toddler and my daughter only an idea. We are renovating our house, for the second time. It's a long weekend. I am digging merrily away on a Saturday when I hit a water main. Water floods.

These things happen. I call a plumber. He fixes it. It is very hot, so perhaps it is the heat. On the Sunday I swing with my pick and, with unerring accuracy, I hit the main again.

These things. Happen. The plumber arrives. Laughs. Time and a half. He fixes the main.

It is Monday. A public holiday. Yes, it must be the heat. These things happen in threes. My pick loves the water main. When the plumber arrives, he greets me like an old friend. "Mate, I should take you with me!"

We shake hands.

I look at him and I think of that knuckle. That knuckle can cut me a bit of slack. I forget which one it is but press on and don't let go of the plumber's hand .

He looks at me and I press his knuckle with my thumb. Perhaps if I only pressed one, even a wrong one, it would have been all right. However I pressed every knuckle I could find - after all, it was double time.

The plumber wasn't a Freemason. He looked at me and I looked at him. I pressed a knuckle again. And smiled.

It all made sense to him. Three calls out. Nobody could possibly be that inadequate with a pick. He drew his hand back as if it had been burnt and said, in a rather unreconstructed tone, "Friggin' pervert!"

He got in his truck and drove off while water seeped around me: a bloody drongo. I laughed and wondered why didn't I listen to my father. Perhaps that is what all children must ask themselves at some stage during their life.

My daughter asks why I laugh and I say I was thinking of my dad and plumbers and leave it at that.

Fathers. We walk past the house of a man who owns little fluffy dogs. He walks them in the morning. Once, instead of the usual neighbourly nod, he stopped and told me how, the night before, his son had graduated as a doctor.

"We came here with almost nothing," he said, "and we own our home and my son, my son is a doctor. My son." And he laughed and whistled on with his fluffy dogs.

I think of him and my son says beside me, "They had to let some people go at the supermarket last week." I look at him: "Sacked them?" He nods. "I don't think I'd like to be sacked," he says. I nod.

As a teenager, I got the sack from the supermarket where I worked. I didn't really like working there that much but when they let a lot of us go, I felt pretty lousy.

That night, my father had leant on the door to my bedroom and said in his big voice: "You'll be all right." And he'd ambled off, humming Dean Martin.

So I punch my son in the arm and say, "You'll be all right." My son laughs and shakes his head.

We stop outside a house. All the cladding is gone and hand-made garden statues have been parked out the front with of bits of plaster and wall. There's Snow White with her eyes too close together and a collection of weird-looking dwarfs standing forlornly, victims of planned disaster. A shower is there too: the whole shower casing, dull ruby-pink in colour, plus a soap holder, taps and invalid handles.

It's a shock to see such a private bit of a home thrown out.

The old man who had lived here and stood in that shower would slowly pedal an old bicycle around the streets, a woman walking beside him. She was his daughter.

"Not bad for 89, eh?" he'd say to me as his daughter laughed.

Once, outside the house, he was having trouble getting on the bike and she stood beside him gently holding his elbow. "All right, all right," he snapped. "Go easy, Dad," his daughter said softly.

I asked if they needed a hand. The old man looked away. His daughter said they were fine. The old man held his daughter's hand.

"Remember when we made those?"he said, nodding towards Snow White. His daughter laughed. "You shouted so much. And I still think her eyes are close together."

Her father smiled a little and she helped him on the bike.

"Not bad for 91, eh?" she said. She said it with pride. "No, not bad at all," I said.

Fathers and children.

"Poor old Snow White," my daughter says. "They're throwing her out." And I hold her hand.

The street is changing. The old man died a year or two before. New people were in his house: their new home. Renovating it.

We often imagine we can somehow manage time: put things off and deal with stuff later.

But life isn't like that. It goes on and we go with it. We are finite. I walk along our street with my children. My son is already taller than me and my daughter is growing up. I am growing older. One day other people will make their home in the house in which we live. Make it their home.

Yet even though a street may change, some things don't. A father and his children. I think of the man with his fluffy dogs and his pride in his son. I think of the father and daughter - how all those years after making garden statues, he reached for her. How she steadied him; how proud she was of him.

Nobody has the secret to being a perfect parent and nobody has the secret to living, no matter how many life-guidance gurus bang on. All we can do is be: be with people we care about.

My father would yell and carry on. But I think I am more impatient than he was, even though he had five children.

He had a habit of bursting out with a "Hoy! You!" to one of us kids and then smothering us in a bear hug.

"You know, you're all right!" he would growl.

I never knew why he did it. But as I walk with my kids and our dog I think I see why. Life goes by. We grow and change. But if we care and let those we love know, maybe some things will always remain strong.

"Hey, you two," I say. "You're all right!" I try to sing a Dean Martin song. And our dog barks.