My bedroom on Norcrest Drive had a five foot (or so) Cat in the Hat bouncing on a ball on the wall with cake and fish and rake. Mom painted it, having painstakingly done the linework from little book grid to big wall grid.

As the younger brothers and sisters grew, the folks took over the little room. Marty and I got bunkbeds in the big bedroom at the other end of the hall while Chuck and Liz got the room in the middle. (I suspect the impending arrival of Ken was one of the reasons for the move to the larger house on Fairhaven Road which now, years later, Ken owns. We were all happy to see it stay in the family.)

The big bedroom in the Norcrest Drive house had an end window facing west. I could look out from the top bunk and see the fireworks over Charlotte on the other side of the Genesee River. I think our house was all of half a mile from the Lake Ontario shore. We often walked to the beach -- out of the Norcrest development, across Rock Beach Road, to the end of the stub street on the other side whose name I have forgotten, then down the iron steps down the bluff to the beach.

Now the top of the bluff is a long series of Big Expensive Houses. Walking down is not so easy anymore.

When Corky and I moved from Brighton (across NY 590 from the Fairhaven house) in 2012 we decided we really wanted to be in a smaller house up near the lake. We ended up in East Irondequoit instead of West Irondequoit, and it's the Irondequoit Bay we're near instead of the Genesee River, but it's still a bit less than a mile to the lake and an even mile to the bay outlet bridge.

It's been a lot like coming home.