52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Spring

SPRING AT PLEASANT LAKE IN LAPEER, MICHIGAN

We lived in a private subdivison on Pleasant Lake a private lake. It was not far from where my Step-Dad was born and raised in Elba.

The road to get down into the subdivision was a dirt road. You know how dirt roads get when all the snow melts and you get the spring rain. Some sections of the road would be really bumpy and other sections would be soupy with ruts. Well the guys at the lake had bought a big road grader one year. They called it Big Bertha. There was usually Shorty Reid, Joe Elston and Dallas Haynes that would run the road grader on their weekend off from working. (Usually this would happen once a month and usually a few beers to go along with it). They would get it smoothed out and it would be nice for a while. Thanks Guys!!!

Mom would be out working in her flower beds. She had Lily of the Valley planted along one fence line. They always smelled so nice. The back of the house faced the road and the front of the house faced the lake. On the side of the house between us and the German Family (Hastedt's) next door she had flowers all along the fence between us. Some Roses were in there, and right up next to the house by the bathroom window she had a white lilac bush. That always smelled good when it bloomed. Then at the corner of the house on the front side she had a Peony bush. She was always checking it for blooms. Going down to lake on the German Neighbor side she had terrace she had put in with rocks between each terrace and she phlox and I don't remember what all but it sure was pretty. On the other side of the front of the house was the entrance coming out from the basement and terraces below it. The top of the entrance to the basement was a cement slab with gravel like stones like in it. (We would sunbathe on it and sometime picnic there). Along that fence line was wild grapes we never ate them but we would have to chop down dead stuff and clear runners that might have took hold in the ground.

Dad would put the dock in when the water warmed up some. Then us girls would rake the bottom of the lake on both sides to the property lines to get weeds out. There must have been a hundred or more steps to get down to the lake. They were not deep steps narrow between each so we usually would skip every other one. Then Dad would put our aluminum rowboat in the lake next to the dock and throw the anchor up on the bank. We weren't allowed to take the boat out in the water but sometimes we would sit in it and fish.

Dad had put a seawall in on the bottom terrace and that's where us girls would sometime stand and fish. Sometimes we'd fish from the dock, but most of the time it would be from the seawall. Dad had taught us girls how to bait our hooks and we would go out and collect worms and nitecrawlers. When mom was working in her flower beds sometimes she find some and put them in a container for us. Thanks Mom!!!! 

If we wanted to fish we had to get our own bait and hook our own worm on the end of our cane poles. That's what Dad had bought for my sister and I. We had to take fish off the hook but mom would clean them and fry them babies up. Never caught real big fish from the seawall but they were good eating.

I don't ever remember Dad fishing with us just showing us the ropes.

Those were the good ole days!!!