Family Fortunes: my father, the Walt worshipper

When I was a child, my dad adored Disney. He was word-perfect on every song, could mimic the accent of each animal sidekick and generally worshipped at the altar of Walt. As a tomboy with perpetually scabby knees, I duly swam Ariel Barbie through the soapsuds in the bath mostly to humour him.

His favourite character was Gaston, the misogynistic antihero of Beauty and the Beast. This dubious adoration stemmed mainly from the song My What a Guy that Gaston. He would act out each line, tromping around wearing boots like the character, juggling with five dozen eggs, lifting the family dog high above his head with one hand to demonstrate Gaston's superhuman strength. This would have been more impressive if the dog hadn't then been a puppy the size of a loaf of bread, but my brother and I were amused. The puppy seemed to enjoy it too.

The crescendo of each performance came with the absurd line: “I use antlers in all of my decorating”. Evidently, the lyricists at Disney were having an unproductive day. At this moment he would falter, make a vague, spread-fingered antler shape with both hands and look faintly forlorn at the lack of props.

At the time, my mum was working for Hewlett Packard and spent a lot of time in Colorado. For their 20th wedding anniversary, she brought him back an antler purchased in Boulder, no doubt facing considerable suspicion from airport security. He was delighted, and renditions of "No one (verb)s like Gaston" carried on well into my teens: one of the main reasons I never brought a boy home.

I thought my mum’s present was weird then. Ten years on, I find it strangely romantic, although mostly strange. These days the antler is used as a stand for Dad’s ties and Mum’s jewellery, or as a back scratcher. Those glory days when it was key to a Disney dad-joke are finished but fondly remembered.

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