My early childhood was all about my siblings. I am the oldest of my mother’s eight children.  My father had five, that I know of, including me. Four of them with other women.  My mother and father were high school lovers, but they didn’t stay together long. I was raised by my paternal grandfather; my father’s father.
Problem was, I thought pop was my father.  So, I thought that all his children were also my older brothers and sisters. All six of the extant legitimate ones, from his previous marriage/s, and the 30 illegitimate ones from his wild youth and rodeo riding days. I know how strange it sounds when I say: I thought my granddad was my dad; but it was normal to me. He raised me since I was about one year old.  My actual dad was away, my mum was kicked out by her parents.  So, she went to live with her boyfriend’s dad. After a couple of years of living together they became a couple and raised me; along with the seven children they had (including two sets of fraternal twins), all together.  So, yes, my immediate family, was more than 50 people and my extended family went into the hundreds just including first and close second cousins. This was my normal, but even in this big group, I wasn’t normal.
I knew I was different to my mother’s other children, but we never spoke about it.  Even though, my German descended mother and my ‘white European’ Grandfather had a bunch of pale skinned, blond haired, blue eyed children. I had black hair, brown eyes and coffee coloured skin.  Standing between those snowflakes I was: a short cappuccino in the winter and a sweet mochaccino in the summer. While during summer, they just burnt. Because we are a very mixed family, racially and culturally, it wasn’t so obvious to everyone. But, I always knew I was different.
I secretly had fantasies about being the adopted prince of some far away land; who was sent to slum it, to learn to appreciate the way less fortunate people live.  It was my dream, that one day, I would have to return to the life I was destined to and leave the peasants behind.
Unfortunately, when I was seven years old, I was told my dad was actually my grandfather, meaning my older brothers and sister were actually my uncles and aunt … and the worst part was, my crazy uncle was actually my dad. … I was not a prince, I was actually from that family to begin with.
I cried so hard!
I said ‘it was all lies. My whole life was a lie’.
I even tried to run away from home.
But, I really wasn’t brave enough and just hid in the empty yard next door.
I came home a few hours later, when I got hungry.
At seven, I was not ready for adventures. I just stayed in my bedroom ~ which I shared with two other boys ~ while I tried to make sense of what I had been told.
I knew Jess as my older brother.  Finding out he was my uncle was a shock, but being told he was my dad was insane!
I always thought he was cool. He had cool stuff and did cool things, but I had also been told that he  had a bit of a temper – all of the guys from that generation did. People were legitimately afraid of them. I didn’t want to grow up to be one of them. I was afraid of them. But, then again, when I was 7, I was small and frail for my age. I was afraid of everything.
Grandad was our patriarch. He held the family together. I loved and respected him so much. He was a very intelligent man, although he never even finished primary school. But he was literate and self-taught. Heck, he did everything himself. He could fix or make just about anything, if it wasn’t electrical. He was also freakishly strong, especially for an old man. He loved telling us his old stories – no matter how many times we had heard them. He never let the truth get in the way of a good story and had a lot of stories. He told so many stories growing up, that I cannot watch that movie Big Fish without crying my eyes out. He had done about everything an unschooled and self educated man could. I loved and respected him more than any other man I have ever met or probably will. But, I was also afraid of him. 
He was not a tall man, only 5’6”. I am taller, now, than he was.  But he was built like a tank. He had hands like bear paws. His fingers were like thick sausages.  His forearms and calves had more muscle than my thighs. I am not exaggerating when I say his strength was ridiculous and his will was stronger than his arms. You see, he grew up in a different time.  When he was a boy, Australia was still, mostly, a wild colonial place. When he was six, he had his first job, cutting wood, with his dad and his brother.  By the time he was ten he was taking the wood cart out on his own; chopping enough wood (with an axe) to fill the cart; taking the cart to town (Wentworth, sometimes Mildura), selling the wood and then returning home for lunch ~ when he was ten. When I was ten I was exhausted and felt like I was dying every-time I walked to school.
Which reminds me: when I was about ten years old and he was in his mid-fifties, I saw him pick up a van.  Well, okay, he didn’t pick up the whole van, over his head like in a superman movie.  It just seemed like that to me at the time. But he did pick up the back the van, full of stuff and hold it, while a couple of Dutch backpackers changed their tyre. They blew a tyre while traveling through Wentworth and pulled over, in front of our place to fix it. The van was full of their stuff, while they were traveling around Australia, so they couldn’t find their jack. They were stuck and arguing about what to do. Their raised voices had triggered our dog, King. He was half husky and half German Timber-wolf. I know, that’s probably hard to believe, because it would be illegal to privately own and almost impossible to get now, especially in Australia, but this was more than 30 years ago.  He was real.  I used to ride him like a horse! He was a beautiful black dog, with longish black fur and he broke so many dog chains that Pop had him on a horse chain with a big thick collar. Although he was huge and powerful, he was such a placid soul, until he was triggered; then he broke chains and jumped over 1.8-metre fences, like they weren’t even there. He was the best dog we ever had. We accidentally rode our bikes and trikes over his tail so many times and he never even growled at us children.  But, if an unknown adult tried to come into the yard, he bailed them up so quick they thought their lives were over. I never heard him bark. When other dogs walked past, he just walked up to the gate and stared at them. Dogs are like people. They try to act brave. Always barking, but, when they recognise a wolf, they shut up so quick you can hear the vacuum from their balls being sucking up into their stomachs.
He growled.  Sometimes at night he howled, but he never barked. He just watched when other dogs marked outside our yard and he walked over and watched them run if they came too close to our fence.  Man or dog, it was the same. If anyone came too close to the fence, or made too much noise, he’d bound over, head high, and stared at them. If they didn’t stop and stare at their own feet or back off he’d growl and lean towards the gate until they left or Grandad came and let them in.  Boy, I loved that dog so much. But I’m getting off track.  This one particular day, these Dutch backpackers were panicking and arguing and grandad went out to see why King was at the gate, growling. I followed him, to the gate, but I stayed inside. I saw him walk across the road and ask what was going on. One young man apologised and said: ‘we have trouble’. The other must have been better at English. He explained everything to Pop and before he had even finished pop walked around to the back of the van and picked up the back end. Both wheels were off of the ground.  The dutch guys looked like they went into shock. I was shocked. I am still shook today, when I think about it and this was more than 30 years ago.  Since then, I have picked up 100kg compactors and put them on the back of utes after doing paving all day. I am not the weak child I used to be anymore.  But I cannot imagine, me ever being able to pick up the back of a van. While this van was so heavily laden that they were arguing about unpacking it and he just picked it up, like it was a box of shoes. I swear, he was just made of different stuff. Like I said: I loved and respected him, more than anyone else; but I did fear him.
He had a seriousness that was also on a different level. Like I mentioned earlier, he loved to tell us stories. Sometimes (not often, but sometimes), if he was quiet – and we asked – he’d tell us his war stories. But, normally he didn’t mention Vietnam at all. He hated talking about it and he wished he could forget that place existed, or so he said, if we asked. But, on those evenings, when he was unusually quiet, if we just asked what he was thinking about, he’d tell us about one of the guys in his unit: who they were and how they died. Or about one of the beautiful local villages his unit visited. Including the lovely ladies that feed and hid them; before the Yanks burnt them all, from the sky, just because their home was too close to the border. But, sometimes, he turned real dark. Maybe it was only every 5 years, or so, that he got into one of those moods; but I never forgot. We just went to bed when his voice changed. I think Mum just went to bed too. Except for those few times I woke up to mum crying while he was yelling at her. I didn’t think he hit her, but I was scared that he would. I knew he could have killed her.
Even as children, we understood that the things he saw changed him. We were afraid of part of him waking up. I say we, even though, I should say I, because my two younger brothers were there. They were younger and they understood less; but I am sure they knew. They knew something. We all have issues. I am sure this was part of it! The boys knew; but I don’t know if my younger sisters ever saw this part of him. He was so different with them. I don’t know if they will even believe me writing it now; but that is what it was like for us.
I was about 11 years old when my parents (my mother and my paternal grandfather) married each other. So, then, with absolutely no inbreeding in my family, my father-uncle became my older brother, again. All of the older brothers and older sister, that I had had a hard time coming to accept as my uncles and aunty, were now legally my brothers and sister … again. So, I had brother uncles – bruncles, and a sister aunty – santy. Also, all of my cousins, who had grown up calling me uncle, then learnt to just calling me Cuz, where officially back to being my nephews and nieces. Some of them still call me uncle, even though they are older than me. Between this and a couple of my bruncles swapping dance partners and raising each other’s kids, my family tree … well, let’s put it like this: ‘I don’t sit on a branch like any normal family tree. I climbed out of a rose bush. It is an interwoven hedge bearing some rare and beautiful flowers, surrounded by pricks!’