I left off at the start of 1990 when we moved back to Melbourne. To be honest, things were pretty cruisy there for the couple of years we were there. We lived in Watsonia, an Army suburb in the north east. We went to a Catholic Primary School that was friendly and pretty fun. The usual things happened across the couple of years in Rasheda Street. Here's a list.
Aunty Carol's Gemini and the crash. Dad's sister went over seas and we were babysitting her little blue Gemini. When it was parked in the driveway and we wanted to play some cricket or do things outside, Mum would let me take the handbrake off, put it in neutral and roll it gently down the driveway. Well also, Dad had taken me for a couple of drives in the Southland carpark in the Express Van and at 12 years old I thought I was a legend, and could drive. Well one day I got cocky moving the gemini and put it into first gear, started it up to drive it down the driveway. Well I let the clutch out too fast, the car lurched forward and flew down the driveway, crashing into the shed. Whoops.
Backyard concerts. One of our first fore rays' (how do you spell that word) into entrepreneurship was our backyard or loungeroom concerts. With such a big hoard of kids, these were a multi act show and definitely worth the $5 cover charge. (Yep we were so cheeky we put $5 on it, in 1991.) Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, ACDC were all regular features on the playlist, with Ned's rendition of Black and White still part of our family folklore. We saturated the market with too much content though, and the business venture died off. Pretty happy with the $25 we banked and used to buy icecreams of course.
It's not really much of a story, except that it was my most traumatic childhood 'injury', but there was the great shiner. Playing downball at school one morning (handball against the wall was a marquee game at our school). I went back to receive a serve and blindly crashed into this dude Troy's stone hard head. I remember he just shook it off and kept walking but I immediately felt 'weird'. I left the court and started jogging after a nearby teacher, whimpering like a pretty big sook. Mr Angel eventually turned around, I must've looked a sight, because he went pale and rushed me off to first aid. I looked in the mirror and had the biggest, most impressive shiner, it had blown up within moments. The black eye took me off school for two days and I had to wear sunglasses for a week after. Pretty impressive injury for a non-contact sport.
Socially, those years 4, 5 & 6 were pretty ok, I had a couple of amazing mates in Tania Palaia and Belinda Crivelli. Tania had a twin brother Matt who I was madly in love with. (Standard behaviour for me to have a constant object of affection.) More to come on them later.
The pant wetting hadn't really left me yet, probably to do with the fourth change of school in four years and having a weird name, being double the height of everyone - BUT it was ok, I had some contingency plans of being able to just leave the classroom if I needed to pee. Legitimate authority to 'wag' class for 10 minute periods whenever I wanted. Cool.
Sadly I did have a couple of episodes and it coincided with a bit of schoolyard mockery being called 'Desmelza'. Which at the time I thought was the cruelest, most devastating attack on a person imaginable. I have no idea if it did have anything to do with me being smelly, or if it just rhymed well with my name, but it completely haunted me and has made me super conscious of my aroma ever since.
We had a pretty cool gang of hood rats in our local area that we hung out with back in those days also. Our school was a massive 40 minute walk from home (which we complained to mum about constantly) and most of our school friends, didn't live near us. So we had our home mates and our school mates. Sometimes there were fights and so forth, but generally, we'd rock around the hood on our bikes, disappearing for a full day, getting up to mischief and having a sweet time. We did get involved in some pizza delivery stitch ups. Sending unwanted pizza's to the neighbours houses who we had 'beef' with. One time it backfired because when we phoned it in we gave an address that was similar to ours (number 11) and the people's who house we sent it to (Leigh) knew it was us and said the order must be for number 1. So Dominoes delivered to our house. Mum and Dad had to pay for the order. (Maybe they just decided to, we're not sure) Anyways, we were drilled for it, and dobbed in Clarrie as the culprit, because he was mum's favourite. We got banished to the naughty box and mum and dad had delicious pizza for dinner. We still thought we were pretty awesome and hilarious.
Some big memories from those times include:
Wombat's death / departure. This was the mysterious disappearance of our beautiful, loyal and friendly border collier/black labrador Wombat. He was the trusty steed who since I was 18 months old had never been far away. He'd had his fair share of trials and tribulations over the years. He was dad's absolute side kick. Always on runs and adventures together. He'd travelled up and down the east coast with us for all our moves. Been hit whilst chasing cars; followed us for miles when we went on outings - not wanting to miss a minute of the family action. Then one day, in Melbourne - he disappeared. I will never forgive Dad for (amongst a million things) constantly jibing that the Chinese restaurant that opened up must've put him on the menu. Mum cracked a couple of those jokes also, but then in serious, she said he probably went away somewhere quiet to die in his old age. Being such a family dog; that makes me feel better.. although it was still super sad not to see his kind and gentle face with calm wagging tail whenever we got home.
The NRL grand finals in the lounge room. Even though our parents were Riverina kids and subsequently AFL enthusiasts (Dad Richmond, Mum North Melbourne); all the time spent in QLD had turned us into major Rugby League junkies. We were supporters of the Broncos but absolutely MAD about the Queensland Maroons. I remember State of Origin and Grand Final series in the late 90's when the Canberra Raiders, Tina Turner, Marc Williams, Mal Meninga, Wally Lewis, Steve Renouf, Alphie Langer, the Walters brothers, Gordon Tallis and Glen Lazarus were our heroes with filthy Benny Elias, anyone from the Tigers to be honest and those god awful Blues were... well of course the filthy cochroach Boos.
Laid up under blankets in the loungeroom of our Melbourne house, watching the biggest most epic matches of all time - as a family. These were seriously cool times. Special, peaceful and loving times - bonding through sport and particularly the shared passion of QLD.
Melbourne in the 90's was also a stage where mum and dad signed up as multi level marketers with a rising Australian business called Omegatrend. They seemed to do pretty amazing things with the business. We started eating pretty cool 'herbalife' style supplemented foods, listening to LOTS of wellbeing and empowerment tapes plus reading all sorts of similar books.
Mum and Dad introduced this incentive system called 'The Star System' and dubbed our little team, the Living Legends.
We had to divise the 90s version of what we'd now call a Vision Board - our Dream Charts with financial goals associated. Then all our chores and studies and behaviours would be recorded in a ledger (literally a marketing collateral of the system) and we'd receive vouchers for the different dreams. Almost like a Barefoot Investor style breakdown of savings.
My dream was Tuscany. A family holiday to Tuscany. Oh man, I dreamed and researched and fantasised about that trip for years. My brother's had Disneyland and cool bikes etc on their charts. Mine was just a shrine to Italy. Food, scenery, people, fashion, soccer the works.
For a fair while this system was pretty amazing and it even came with us when we moved to Brisbane... however ... like many iniatives and promises with my Dad - it never led anywhere and fell into our 'broken promises' box.. for therapy years later.
We did get a Nintendo 64 and Olive, the first PC of the house - it was a swanky Olivetti and was pretty much where the digital versions of Dad's obsession with encyclopaedias began to get housed, plus a place for mum to play games and do her 'study and business'.
My love of sport and teams was ignited in Melbourne. Part of it was the connection with Dad but more so the fun of competition and being active and of course.. being good at it. I competed in Little Athletics for St Marys Club in the Diamond Creek association. Every Saturday morning walking, jumping, running, throwing my way around the track. I was mediocre, but I set big dreams for the Olympics. Dad was a hockey player so I also got involved in hockey and got to play a few senior games. I thought I was pretty legendary - 12 years old playing Hockey in the seniors. It was most likely pity selections but didnt bother me. When our family friends would pick me up in their mini-minor to head off to soccer for the day - I was practically already a hockeyroo in my mind. Most of my weekends at sport were spent away from the family. The boys were too young to play and mum and dad were busy working and playing sport themselves (Dad) or raising the other kids (Mum), so I just made a way to not miss out. In hindsight, I realise just how stranded mum was, and how lucky I was that they gave me so much freedom and encouragement to be resourceful and get myself involved.
I mentioned before, that in Melbourne my best friend at school was Tania Palaia and also Belinda Crivelli. We were thick as thieves and the middle of the range, not cool but not completely outcasted. When I wasnt playing sport I also spent a lot of time atTan's house. She was a mad Collingwood fan, her mum Di was an absolute sweetheart. Her Dad was a typical Italian Melbourne Dad - house painter and beautifully friendly guy. Tan and I were a little bit boy obsessed, but also just loved music, hanging out at the footy grounds and gossiping. Tan's twin brother Matthew was my first crush and almost kiss - but I got too scared. Man I thought he was so gorgeous. My second crush was John-Paul Reyes, I think he was Phillipino. I just know he was dark and handsome and dreamy. He knew I had a crush but that's all that I ever did about that. Tan's dad passed away in our 30's which was super sad. Their little family was such a sweet one, but it seems time and tragedy has divided them a bit.
Tan and I had planned to go to Montmorency High School together (although I secretly wanted to go to Loyola College).. however it wasn't meant to be.
At the conclusion of year 6 in Melbourne, following my confirmation and all the excitement of graduation had worn down - we packed up as a family and headed back north to Queensland and the start of high-school.
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