My Grandparents Basement

My grandparents house (my fathers parents) had a basement. I grew up going to that house and I knew it well. The basement enthralled me. In the summer it would be cool and damp, but pleasant, and it smelled "old fashioned" to me.

When you walked into the back door (back porch to back door) of my grandparents house you could walk straight through about two steps into the basement door and go down the steps. This made it easy to run up the steps and outside in a jiffy if all the doors were open. During the summer it was one thing I was very good at doing, especially if my grandmother needed my grandfather for something, I was the messenger.

The stairs were painted gray, I believe, and I never realized until I visited after moving away from Oregon, years later, just how tiny those steps were. I'm amazed I never fell down them - as they were literally half the size of my feet (I'm a size 9 in mens, so my feet aren't small, but my grandfathers feet were HUGE).

When you descended the many tiny steps you'd see a pool table, not regulation size (I'd learn years later), and I was told it came with the house. I spent hours down there playing pool on that pool table. They had a "Minnesota Fats Plays Pool" paperback book and I'd sit and dream that one day I was going to be playing pool just like him. I remembered the Brady Bunch episode with Bobby being a pool player and knew I could be just like that; young and famous.

There was a small radio on a small table off to the left of which I'd put on the country station and sing along to Eddie Rabbit crooning how he loved a rainy night...or Ronnie Milsap singing about calling your name in the smokey mountain range. My grandmother would sometimes come down and play pool with me, which was wonderful. She was pretty good. My grandfather tried to teach me how to put "spin" on the ball and I can still do that to this day if I concentrate enough.

Behind the pool table on the wall there was a Spanish Mural painting of a man in a Gondola (looked Italian, but the people were Spanish) on a river with a woman in it in a white flowing dress...I loved that painting. Next to it was another painting of a view of a small city on a hill - I'm not sure who painted these pictures or what they were depicting, but they were beautiful. They were oil based paintings and during the summer would get oil blisters in them that I would pop when no one was looking. Years later I regretted making holes in these works of art...my grandmother caught me a couple times and told me, of course, to not do that...of which I said, "okay" to but did it again anyway. Typical kid actions.

My grandmother had a washing machine in the basement, but didn't get a dryer until I was probably in my late teens. She hung everything outside to dry in the sun...and if it was raining (this was Oregon so it wasn't uncommon) she'd hang it up in the basement. The basement had a freezer near the "wash basin" and washing machine, and on the other side there was a section they never turned lights on in for some reason. There were a couple of wardrobes in this area of which they stored winter coats and other random clothing they never wore, and a painting that hung on the wall. I would stare at that painting every time I went down to visit - I loved it...it haunted me, in a good way. The woman standing in the painting looking so calm...reflective...like she was just there to watch over things and that was that. She made me feel less alone as a child...and years later I would ask my grandmother to give me that painting should she ever decide to get rid of it. She gave it to my folks after I moved out of state and they finally brought it to me when they moved down here. Here it is, on their wall, but it's actually in my living room as I type:

























The story behind this picture is that my grandmothers mother bought it at a "sale" (could be yard, could be garage, could be flea market) one year...and passed it on to her. This picture reminds me of my grandparents, of the pool table, of the quiet times I had as a kid that I relished.

There was also an oil furnace in the basement and I found a couple of boxes of my dads old toys down there, of which I would play with on a regular basis. He had some great old tin wind up cars and army men, some airplanes and marbles. I loved his toys and I hope he never gets rid of them (he finally confiscated them from my grandparents). My grandfather had a wood workbench area that he would tinker with things on...and let me use his wooden handled drill and bit set to drill holes into things. I have his drill somewhere in my house - it was a fantastic toy for me as a kid.

They kept enough firewood to set the house ablaze underneath the steep staircase, and had a pantry full of jars of random things. My grandmother kept all the Christmas decorations in the pantry, along with a large collection of Ovaltine jars filled with Filberts (Hazelnuts) with dates written on masking tape on the jar. It was not uncommon to find jars filled with various foods that had dates going back to the late 60's when I was a child in the 70's. Years later, when I went to help my parents move my grandmother into an assisted living facility, several years after my grandfather had passed away, I went into the pantry to look for the ornaments (as my mother had no need for them being a J.W., and I really wanted them). Not only did I find the typical stash of random items, but my grandfather had also filled plastic and glass jugs full of water with dates and the supposed "run" that the water was from. I recall seeing dates as early as 7 years previous marked "Bull Run Water" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_Run_Watershed) - I wonder if he was preparing for some sort of holocaust. My grandparents came from the depression and it seemed they were always preparing for some impending disaster...this water just proved it years later.

The panty...it always smelled like fresh filberts, and to this day I can still smell that in my nose if I close my eyes and think back to that innocent time in my life. When nothing mattered to me but listening to Crystal Gayle and the sound of balls rushing inside the pool table to the end resevoir after dropping them into the top pockets. I loved that sound...I miss that simplicity.