It was pretty obvious. Not like now, when hair color is mostly supposed to be recognized, either applied to young heads in odd patches and harsh colors, or modeled in natural tones of auburn or ash by middle-aged women in the company of gray-tufted men. Back in the late 50s and early 60s, only one’s hairdresser was supposed to know for sure, but anybody looking at my aunts would know, for sure. They could have been septuplets, the way they matched each other’s bouffant, apricot-Danish coiffures. Their hair looked like straw around their tan faces and I remember, it felt stiff. They all had cans of hairspray in their bathroom cabinets: Aquanet, with a design like a spiderweb on its shiny surface.

My brother and I spent time there with our cousins, who were almost all not-blonde, but I will always carry the image with me of my seven aunts sitting inside. I’m sure my mother was with them and the men probably weren’t far from the food, but it’s my blonde aunts I see in memory, with their legs crossed at the knees and their free feet bobbing, all with gold around their necks and fingers and most with cigarettes in their hands.

My cousins, as I mentioned, were mostly not blonde. Of the thirteen boys only Lloyd wasn’t dark-haired, and his curls were more red than yellow. My girl cousins had lighter hair than me or any of the boys, but Nancy’s was dull light brown and Debbie’s, while definitely blonde, was so frizzy it didn’t resemble anyone’s in the family. I’m rusty about my high school genetics, but my aunts didn’t marry particularly dark guys; we probably would see more light hair in our clan if any of my father’s sisters had been natural blondes.

My cousins, as I mentioned, were rambunctious. At their best they were high-spirited and at their worst, which is where they were most often, they were tiresome. They were all older than my brother and I, and they were together all the time when we weren’t there, so we exerted no influence over them.

They could swim well, of course, but they were masters of deliberate belly flops just to wet the poolside people. They were accomplished with water balloons, rubberbands, pea-shooters, and even BB guns. They tended to run in packs, teasing or attacking kids, spying on girls or grownups.

My aunts didn’t intervene. They tsked sometimes, and talked about boys being boys and made of mischief, and poured themselves another cup of coffee or maybe mixed a gimlet. My uncles paid no attention. I guess my father was used to it, having grown up with my aunts. Mom was the only one who seemed aware and sometimes pulled me out of the cousinly fray, like the time she overheard the boys talking about surprising me in my bath. It’s hard to believe that they really would have invaded the room with their snickers and Polaroid, but I’ll never forget how Mom grabbed my wrist and kept me with her while she watered the garden, and let me overhear at least Bruce and Mikey as they conspired. On the other hand, Mom acted like she didn’t believe me when I told her how often Uncle Buddy had “accidently” let me see his penis, when he exited the bathroom and when he lounged around in his boxer shorts. But Mom considered herself and all the uncles to be out-laws in the family; she seemed to get along with the uncles better than the aunts, and her favorite always was Buddy, who was the best looking and the only one who liked to dance.

I couldn’t even cozy up to my girl cousins. Neither Nancy nor Debbie was mean to me, but they weren’t interesting either. They were two and three years older than I, they both developed at younger ages than I did, and as soon as they entered puberty they started becoming their mothers; as far as I could tell, their hobbies were bleaching their hair and coveting bling and competing for the attention of the boy cousins.