The basement has been transformed on more than one occasion. When we were kids, the basement had, in the middle of it, a giant octopus-style heating system. This is what it looked like:
Not sure who that dude is, but he was not in our basement.
So, this thing was smack in the middle of the basement, our playroom when it was too cold out or bad weather or we were bored or my mom wanted us out of her hair. The floor, at the time, was cement. I know, great room to play in, right? What made the basement awesome to play in, with both the cement and the octopus, was that it was perfect for a roller rink.
Remember the roller rink? We made our own. We actually roller skated AROUND the octopus, on the cement, in the basement. Usually with music. Okay, almost always with music. And the music was:
And then there was:
I will happily admit that I LOVED Shaun Cassidy and Donny and Marie. LOVED THEM.
So we roller skated.
Later, the basement was the site for a Volansky-cousin Beatles singalong, the ill-conceived "gym club" (picture six eleven year olds doing push ups, sit ups and then giggling -- I blame Jane Fonda), and countless hours of Barbie playing. We had the townhouse style dream house (maybe that's why I love my row house so much...), the airplane, some sort of pool and a lot of clothes. My sister was a much better Barbie caretaker than I ever was. My Barbie's clothes were frequently stapled together. Sue's were lovingly crafted and matched. We both had the misguided thought that we could pierce Barbie's ears with straight pins. Her ears, sadly, always turned green. Poor Barbie. She did have friends: Ken, of course, and Skipper. Early on, there was Midge, but I'm not quite sure what happened to her. Her 1950s/1960s clothes seemed out of touch with the swinging stylings (albeit stapled) of Barbie.
The basement also housed my father's work area. My dad is not exactly a handyman, but he certainly spent a fair amount of time down there in recent years, making model cars, airplanes and boats. There was a decoy duck period. He did, after TOO much time down there, develop nosebleeds that I am fairly certain were a result of an excess of airplane glue. We called his putterings "art therapy." I think he has been happy down there.
Sometime after I stopped believing in Santa Claus (or maybe I was on the cusp of not believing in Santa Claus...), the basement was the place where one year I snooped around for Christmas presents. I have a vague memory of finding them, hidden in the back, at another end of the octopus. After I opened the bag, I felt guilty and quickly closed it and never looked again.
My mom has a habit of keeping a LOT of things around the house, "just in case." An example of this is the 5-7 bottles of ketchup that were stored in the upstairs pantry. After the octopus was replaced by a more conventional heating system and some carpet was put down (so much for roller skating after THAT), a storage freezer appeared. In the freezer was kept frozen sides of beef, countless breasts of chicken, orange juice (2 for $3!), homemade pasta sauce and who knows what else. When my parents replaced their refrigerator, buying one that had the freezer on the bottom for greater ease, the old fridge went to the basement, housing a LOT of beer, mixers, and food overflow for Thanksgiving, Easter and other holidays. There was also another cabinet, stocked to the edges with what I think was Lawry's marinade, in a bunch of different flavors. There was extra sugar, coffee, salad dressing, aluminum foil, Saran wrap, rice, pasta, seasonings.
My sister and I would frequently go "shopping" down there. Somehow, I missed out on the packing of that cabinet because, now that I am looking at my own pantry, I seem to be out of Lawry's...
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