I can remember going with Dad and Mom to a couple of places to look at. I was never around any of their conversations or if I was I was too young to be paying any attention so I really didn't have any clue what they were or were not going to do. All of a sudden......we were moving. Mom took us kids over to the house one day and we walked through it. I remember us going but I really don't remember much about it.
I do remember that they said that there was a lake and beach that we were able to go to because we were buying the house. I remember going to that beach one day early in the summer of 1956 but before we actually moved. I remember it being pretty cool to a 7 year old.
So moving day came. I don't remember being any help at all. What I do remember is that the Kay family came over. The mother, Marie Kay, was also a nurse and knew Mom. They also had rented space on Putnam by where we lived. They had quite the family with several kids.....who were by anyone's standards a bit on the wild side and of course we were wild whenever they were around. The father, John Kay, and Marie were a lot of help.
Dad had rented a truck that had one of those lift gates on the back. I do remember as they were backing the truck up to the garage they had the gate down and they ran it right into the porch pole of the Dellwood house and broke it right in half. They pounded it back into place and finished the day. I don't know if they told anyone or not. If I was a betting guy I would put my money on them having NOT telling anyone and probably never talking about it again.
So there we were in our "new" house. It wasn't, of course, new but it was new to us and it wasn't a terribly old house probably only 6 or 7 years old. There it was....80 Riviera Terr. in Waterford Township. Now back then we used the Pontiac Post Office so the
address was Pontiac, Michigan. I am writing this in 2010 and Waterford has had its own Post Office for quite some time and that area's address is Waterford, Michigan.One of the benefits of the new house was the neighborhood that it was in was associated with a beach called Elizabeth Lake Estates Improvement Association or E.L.E.I.A. It had arguably the nicest beach in Waterford Twp. That is saying something considering that Waterford Twp. had a whole lot of lakes and beaches. Only residents of the E.L.E.I.A. could use the beach along with their guests and they were limited to the number of guests that they could bring. I had some really great fun at that beach over the next 25 years.
That first summer that we lived at 80 Riviera Terr. I turned 8 years old. My parents, I think mostly my mom, decided that it would be great if I had a birthday party. I don't remember my exact feelings but I can assure you that I would have been just as happy to not have a party. I remember friends coming over including the Kay kids and Danny Bushey from the old neighborhood (they had also moved by this time to another house within Pontiac) and of course all of the kids that lived on our block at the new house. Naturally I got all the normal presents....you know, that cheap stuff that as parents we grumble that we have to buy it for some other kid......but I really don't remember what any of them were. The only present I remember actually came from Dad and Mom and it was a baseball mitt. I have to admit that it was NOT one of the nicer mitts in the world but it was my first mitt and I used it for years and years. I didn't replace it until the mid '60's.
I lived at the 80 Riviera Terr. house for a long time. I did leave there in April 1968 when I was drafted but returned in November 1969. I left again in September 1972 when I married. Dad and Mom finally sold the house and moved to Florida in June 1986.
