Barb got a java error trying to post the following blog:


I've just caught up on everyone's memories of basements, Five and Dime
stores, and Bob's photos of "things." Bob, your picture of small metal
objects reminds me of that old commercial for Cracker Jack. The kid is
at the beach and he stops to buy a box from an actor we all know and
recognize (I want to say his name is Jack Guillford or something close
to that). Anyway, he doesn't have quite enough money so he starts
pulling things out of his pockets--marbles, string, keys, pebbles. Oh,
it was more delicious to see his treasures than to eat the Cracker
Jacks. The desire to focus on things also reminds me of the key scene in
To Kill a Mockingbird where the young boy, Jem, pulls out his old cigar
box and shows Scout all the treasures that some mysterious stranger
(Boo Radley) has provided for them in a hole in the Maple Tree near
their house. It was quite moving in the book but after seeing it in the
movie as a kid, I wanted my own cigar box to save things.


I envy Leah's memories of her basement. We had no such thing growing up
in Los Angeles. Well, maybe somewhere there were basements but not on my
block. We had instead back pantries stocked with shelves and jars,
closets that were really hallways connecting one bedroom to another
section of the house, and narrow passageways along the side of the
garage that would lead to small open spaces between people's backyards.
I remember the great sense of exhilaration my gang experience when we
found a small hole in a backyard fence we could crawl under. Such
freedom! It was a little concrete channel for some kind of drainage
(which is why we could fit under the fence) leading to an area behind
someone's gardening shed. Then we had to climb over an ivy-covered
cyclone fence and run down the driveway--and find ourselves in the
street around the corner!!! You would think we were Marco Polo on the
eve of his discovery of the Silk Route.


The closest thing we had to basements was the crawl space under the
foundation. I guess that would be under the foundation. Maybe it's
between the foundation and the first floor. Regardless, it's extremely
narrow and not even a child of 9 can stand up, let alone sit up straight
except in a few select corners of this subterranean expanse. It was
always dark, even midday and had that sharp smell of dirt dusted with
concrete and industrial glues and solvents. We would take flashlights
with us and crawl from one end of the house to the other--"exploring." I
think the boys did their best to encourage a belief that awful spiders
and killer insects lived under the house. And so it was a very brave
thing indeed to go under there.


The appeal remains strong for the next generation. When Scott and family
came out here for my 40th birthday, one of the first unsupervised
activities requested by Rocky and Ray (still going strong after all the
adults pooped out) was to ask if they could crawl under our house. Yes
of course, we said. But watch out for the killer insects.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 28, 2002 at 12:02 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.