By Dorothy Brush / dcb1@frontier.net
August 19, 2008 07:49 pm
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A basement is like a broken toe. You never really appreciate that hole in the ground until you are deprived of it. Several times our family moved to a new town and into a house without that comforting lower level. By the time the next move came a basement was a priority.
Yes, I agree that lower level can be a clutter catcher, a dust basin but what a joy for kids on rainy days. There they can skate, ride tricycles and play with abandon. In the days before clothes were dried in a machine, wet clothes could be hung at any hour of the day or night.
As an unabashed basement booster my taste is easily satisfied with the most basic construction – a hole dug deep in the good earth then frosted with cement. I know there has been a trend toward making basements pretty and fancy, but I believe that firm foundation has enough personality to stand unadorned.
Puny utility rooms are a poor excuse for a spacious basement where all the necessary equipment to keep a house warm in winter and cool in summer is easy to access. Before air conditioning the basement is where families fled to escape the heat. That below ground room stayed cool when temperatures soared. Here the washing machine and dryer can hum, purr and chug without offending the human overloaded auditory system.
Sometimes basements are referred to as cellars. Before basements became the underpinnings of houses early settlers learned to dig cellars to store food in a cool place. Even earlier across the ocean the French used cellars to store wine.
My appreciation for basements began early in life because of weather. In the days before we had an over abundance of weather reports and years before sirens warned when bad weather was heading our way there was my mother. She was our self-appointed weather watcher.
When the sky turned black and the trees began to bend from the wind mother stayed near a window. Some inner voice alerted her if the storm came in the middle of the night and she wakened to become our protector. Once again at the window she could gauge how bad things were by observing the illuminated landscape as lightning flashed.
As the fury increased everyone was rolled out of bed and down to the basement we all trooped. How many hours of my childhood were spent all safe and snug in that room under the house I have no idea. In my memory it was my security blanket.
Considering how many experiences the experts tell us damage children’s psyche mother must have handled those times well. I remember those times not with fear and trembling but as exciting. To this day I am exhilarated by storms.
For me a house is not a home without a basement. Take my patio, take my garage, but not my basement!
Dorothy Copus Brush is a Fairfield Glade resident and Crossville Chronicle staffwriter whose column is published each Wednesday. She may be reached at dcb1@frontiernet.net.
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