Always male, he was regarded as a hardy type, adaptable, independent, sport loving and resolute. He was egalitarian and valued mateship highly above any respect to authority. The anti-authoritarian character of the \u2018Australian Type\u2019 was perpetuated by images of bushranging, the persistent eulogising of Ned Kelly, the independence, resolve and uprisings on the gold digging fields \u2026<\/p>\nSara Cousins, Monash University National Centre for Australian Studies<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Australia, as any guide book will tell you, is an odd duck of a country, full of anomalies and contradictions. The animals are an unholy mix of cuteness and death. The geography can be breathtaking, or mind-numbingly boring. And the people? Ask an Aussie their family history and you inevitably uncover a torrid love triangle, a secret child (or 6) and a family feud. Throw in a bush fire for good measure, and there you have Australia in a nutshell. (Or at least, that\u2019s my family tree.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Growing up, we\nwere raised on a steady diet of Australia fair, but the Australia that lived\nmost vividly in my heart was housed in a brown manila box hidden in my parent\u2019s\nbedroom. It was full of memorabilia from the \u201860\u2019s, a Pandora\u2019s box of\nrebellion, motorcycles & counter-culture, told through sepia toned\nphotographs and torn newspaper clippings. It captivated me. The newspapers\ncalled them \u201cbikies,\u201d a term I found funny and harmless. The men all dressed\nlike John Travola in Grease and the women looked tough, like the sexy, black-leather\nversion of Olivia Newton John. There were photos of laughter and adventure, men\nclimbing on towers of kegs in the river, hundreds of motorcycles at the\nBathurst races, free spirits sleeping under the stars in the outback.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Apart from my\nfather (whom I idolized) there was one character in that box that shone\nbrighter than them all,\na man bordering on legend. Some children\nhad Hans Christian Anderson, but I had a one legged, portly bon vivant named\nHairy, best friend to my father, and unwitting co-founder of one of the most\nnotorious biker gangs in Australia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I was\ntravelling to his funeral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019d met Hairy a grand total of twice in my life, but his persona loomed so large it felt like a constant presence. My affection for him was stronger than the bond I shared with many blood relatives. I desperately wanted to be at his funeral, needed to be there, knowing I had no business attending. Was it Hairy? Was it Australia? I couldn\u2019t put a finger on it. Pushing down the guilt of abandoning my business and family in Winnipeg, I dusted off my Australian passport and drove to the airport. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Landing in Brisbane, I\nwas awoken my first morning by a deafening cacophony of belligerent crows.\nJetlagged & confused, I made my way onto the traditional green and white veranda.\nTwo cockatoos were fighting over breakfast on the railing, and I looked past\nthem, through a border of palm trees, to see the old man next door throwing\nfresh meat onto his front lawn. I presume he did this because it attracted the\nnoisy creatures and it was his life\u2019s ambition to piss people off, but I\ncouldn\u2019t be sure. If it was, however, it was working, because my host seethed\nwith rage. The irony of a former\nHell\u2019s Angel being harassed by a curmudgeon with a crow fetish melted away any\nmisgivings I had about coming on this trip. This was my kind of weird and\nwonderful Australia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Meeting up\nwith my parents, we headed north on the Bruce Highway towards the pensioner\u2019s\nparadise of Hervey Bay. The town seemed an odd fit for an outlaw like Hairy. While\nit sported all the beauty and pristine beaches of Queensland\u2019s renown, there\nfelt an undercurrent of the forsaken. Bike lanes were used almost exclusively\nby octogenarians on motorized scooters. Shops opened and closed with the sun,\nand if you didn\u2019t get to a restaurant before 8pm, you didn\u2019t eat. My mother and I stood dumbfounded one evening,\nsurveying an eerily empty main drag. It wasn\u2019t long after dusk, yet the streets\nwere already abandoned, the stores locked tight, and our only companion was a\nhungry fruit bat, darting through the rays of the street lamp. Hardly a rebel\nstronghold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then again,\nI reminded myself, the only thing Australians love more than a nickname, is irony.\n(Possibly the source of my own appreciation for it.) A bald man is Curly, a\nredhead is Bluey, so I suppose it should come as no surprise that the most\nrebellious man I knew would retire to a town known as \u201cGod\u2019s Waiting Room.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Arriving at Hairy\u2019s funeral, I wasn\u2019t sure what to expect. I\u2019d secretly hoped for the spectacle of a full biker procession, forgetting momentarily that these veterans of the \u201860\u2019s were now pushing eighty. Instead, they appeared before me as old men; men with canes, men with speech impediments, paralysed or missing limbs, men with the scars of a life hard-lived etched clearly across their bodies. Why this caught me by surprise I have no idea. I\u2019d watched my father grow old, suffer illness and stroke, yet it never occurred to me that my Kodachrome heroes would have befallen the same fate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Inside the service,\nCurly took to the podium. Curly\u2019s real name is Mike, a soft spoken word-smith\nof deviously creative intelligence. If you needed anything or anyone in South\nEast Asia in the \u201860\u2019s & \u201870\u2019s, you went through Curly. He was the official\nraconteur of this ragtag ensemble, and as such, it was his job to memorialize\nthe man we all adored. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Curly spoke\neloquently of days past, and delighted with stories of mischief and mayhem. For\nevery stereotype of Australia, there was a Hairy to match. He was egalitarian.\nIn Sydney in the 60\u2019s, Hairy held court at Whitty\u2019s Wonderful Wine Bar,\nregaling the hippie chicks with bikie tales, bringing the anti-conformists\ntogether. He was sentimental. After taking a wet corner too fast in \u201967, Hairy\nsuffered a near death crash. The doctors gave him an option – try to save the\nleg, which meant months of surgeries and hospitalization, or amputate and be\nout in a couple weeks. Hairy was not a man to make his mother eat Christmas\ndinner alone, so off came the leg. <\/p>\n\n\n He was a\ntrue rebel. With others in the room, Hairy had founded The Finks MC. They held\ncannon shoots, motorcycle rallies, and partied too hard. The Hollywood\ndirector, Phillip Noyce, unknowingly bought his 1st<\/sup> house in Sydney,\nsandwiched between two Finks strongholds. Years later, he would tell my mother\nthat he felt his only choice was sell his newly acquired home (which he\u2019d just\nsaved enough money to buy), or befriend the rabble rousers. So he made them the\nstars of a short film, forever protecting his investment. Inevitably, the Finks\nevolved into a monster Hairy could no longer control. When I saw him last, he\nwas technically a lifer, but not actively involved. \u201cThe boys\u201d would still drop\nhim a little weed to sell, however, so he could pay medical bills. Always the\ngentleman, Hairy made it clear that if I needed any, I was to help myself. Mary\nwas kept in the crisper in the kitchen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hairy had\nbeen a labourer in the outback and a prospector on the gem fields. With fellow\nbiker, Scunge, he\u2019d struck it rich on opals in Coober Pedy, buying a catamaran\nwith the windfall. They became tour operators, and promptly crashed the vessel off\nthe Great Barrier Reef. Hairy also spoke in the rare Cockney-style rhyming\nslang of old. He would ring up my mom and say \u201chow\u2019s my old china plate?\u201d (China\nplate = mate.) I had so much trouble understanding him, I\u2019d look to others for\ntranslation, only to find them just as confused. If academics ever needed a case\nstudy on the embodiment of the Australian identity, they need look no further\nthan my Uncle Hairy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Later that\nevening, after the funeral and the wake, the old-timers made plans to continue\ntheir memorial at Maggot\u2019s house \u2013 a property on the outskirts of town. My mother\nknew where this was going and worried the booze and potential drugs would be\ntoo much for my father\u2019s ailing health. But I saw in my father a man suffering\ndeep pain and loss. Let them go, I thought. Let them do their worst, relive\nsome of that past glory and shared history. They\u2019d lost their best friend and\nthey needed healing. I offered myself up as chauffeur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Returning\nin the wee hours of the morning to collect my charges, I stood in the dark on\nthe edge of the yard and waited for my eyes to adjust. The property was\nbordered with eucalyptus trees, whose distinct blend of menthol and honey\nperfumed the night air. The menagerie of exotic parrots that had earlier been\nsquawking, were all asleep in their cages. The survivors of the evening sat\naround a bonfire, the remains of a Queenslander\u2019s feast of Balmain bugs, beer\n& prawns splayed across a fold out table under the lean-to off the house. Some\nof them were drunk, some stoned, some both \u2013 these rebels of a bygone age. Hands on shoulders. Laughter. Declarations\nof love from men who did not speak of such things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Suddenly I\nsaw it all clearly. I saw their youth, felt their journey. I finally understood\ntheir brotherhood, not through two dimensional images, but through the unbreakable\nbond of camaraderie. Exactly fifty years after the birth of the Finks, they had\ncome together to say goodbye to its catalyst. Hairy was a legend, not because\nhe set out to be, but because these men made him so. His story, told by those\nwho loved him, spoke more to me of Australia than any cuddly koala or bikini\nclad Bondi blonde ever could. Because my Australia is Hairy. He was the link\nbetween my mother and father, between my Mom\u2019s Australia and the ever evolving\ncontinent she left behind. He was the anti-authoritarian bushranger, my own\npersonal Ned Kelly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like\nAustralia, Hairy could be sexist, he could be homophobic, he could be dangerous\nin the wrong crowd. He was a gentleman, but only if you were a lady. If he\ncared about you, he was yours for life, but like many of his generation, his\naffection could be betrayed by his language of old prejudices. (It didn\u2019t mean\nhe cared for you any less.) He loved my brother like a son, and the two of them\nwould drink into the wee hours of the morning, listening to Leonard Cohen and\ntalking about obscure Canadian film makers. To this day I\u2019m not sure if Hairy\nknew my brother is gay. To this\nday, I\u2019m not sure if it mattered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My\nAustralia, like Hairy, is rough, dangerous, loveable, rebellious. It\u2019s sad in\nparts, broken in others, it has died more than once and come back to fight\nagain. My Australia is as contradictory as the flora and fauna that inhabit it.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the night came to a close, and I escorted (half carried) my father and Curly to the car, I did some reflection of my own. With Hairy gone, what becomes of my Australia? Must I lay it to rest with him? Will my child ever know my Australia, or is than an illusion? Did I ever really know my mother\u2019s \u2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Foundations, I thought. Hidden foundations cemented by the myths, legends and bonds of the past \u2013 that\u2019s what we build our identities on. My son may know a different Australia than mine, but I could return to Canada confident in the fact that a foundation as strong as Hairy could never be broken. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He will always be there, holding it all together \u2026 my Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n Always male, he was regarded as a hardy type, adaptable, independent, sport loving and resolute. He was egalitarian and valued mateship highly above any respect to authority. The anti-authoritarian character of the \u2018Australian Type\u2019 was perpetuated by images of bushranging, the persistent eulogising of Ned Kelly, the independence, resolve and uprisings on the gold digging fields \u2026 Sara Cousins, Monash University National Centre for Australian Studies Australia, as any guide book will tell you, is an odd duck of a country, full of anomalies and contradictions. The animals are an unholy mix of cuteness and death. The geography can be breathtaking, or mind-numbingly boring. And the people? Ask an Aussie their family history and you inevitably uncover a torrid love triangle, a secret child (or 6) and a family feud. Throw in a bush fire for good measure, and there you have Australia in a nutshell. (Or at least, that\u2019s my family tree.) Growing up, we were raised on a steady diet of Australia fair, but the Australia that lived most vividly in my heart was housed in a brown manila box hidden in my parent\u2019s bedroom. It was full of memorabilia from the \u201860\u2019s, a Pandora\u2019s box of rebellion, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theimperialroad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/430714_10152238554475128_2021810276_n.jpg?fit=960%2C637&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theimperialroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theimperialroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theimperialroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theimperialroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theimperialroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/theimperialroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":329,"href":"https:\/\/theimperialroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions\/329"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theimperialroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theimperialroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theimperialroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theimperialroad.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theimperialroad.comwp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/BikerCollage-1024x372.jpg?resize=1024%2C372&ssl=1\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theimperialroad.comwp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/551092_3899709984773_1458406414_n.jpg?resize=594%2C404&ssl=1\")
Luke (my host in Brisbane) & Curly. Late 60’s.
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theimperialroad.comwp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/IMG_0242_1-701x1024.jpg?resize=701%2C1024&ssl=1\"){kind=spacer}
<\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"