THE BASEMENT

When I was a child, my family lived in an old house, one with an unfinished basement. The basement was filled with a life time of stuff that my dad collected. Geez, I wonder where I get my hoarding tendencies from? Anyway, this basement of ours was filled with nooks and crannies, tables and chairs, shelves crammed with magazines, left over hardware, wood, and metal from various uncompleted projects, old wardrobes filled with even older linens and one filled with my dad’s various uniforms from his days in the RCAF, plain old junk and even a pile of coal. At one time there was also a tiny cellar room in the corner, filled with dusty, cob webbed wooden shelves and empty jam jars, a reminder of simpler days past. All of this created creepy shadows and dark corners and an imagination run wild.

But before my imagination knew better, it was a great place to explore and play. In those innocent, youthful days, us kids would hang out there playing games like red rover, we’d roller skate, play jacks, ping pong, or explore the unknown junk piled where ever it could find a home. One time, we even created a haunted house and invited the neighborhood kids to walk through. Some days I would help my grandmother with laundry and we’d hang the clothes on the make shift laundry lines that ran the length of the basement or I’d help her take out the gardening tools stored down there and help her out in her garden. Good memories. Happy, normal, childhood memories.

But as I reached my tween years, my mind now filled with scary new images from watching too much TV (watching the Screaming Woman or Carrie did not help), my imagination got the best of me. The basement now became the scariest place on earth!
It was dark, in that one lone lit bulb in the corner, casting long murky shadows kind of way. It was damp and would flood when it rained heavily on those dark stormy nights. The shadows became longer and those nooks and crannies, well they became great hiding places for a deranged killer hiding from the cops on that dark stormy night- at least that’s what I imagined. The millions of spider webs down there, vacant or occupied filled the rafters and the corners of the windows. I knew the spiders were just waiting to lunge at you if you were stupid enough to get close to their evil webs. A stick about the size of a 12” ruler, a nail at it’s centre so it could rotate into a latch was used to lock the basement door that led outside –it was a dad invention and may I add, wouldn’t exactly keep a deranged killer out, would it? And that tiny room in the corner, well, it became a creepy reminder of days past!!
If I had to be down there, to do laundry or grab something out of the freezer (another great hiding place, by the way, well if some deranged killer liked the deep freeze), I’d make it fast, race back up the stairs quick as can be, close the door and lock that sucker behind me – safe! At times, I even remember, before making the dangerous trek down, I would call out at the top of the stairs, is anyone down there?? As if someone would answer, “Yeah, deranged killer down here, so you better not come down here. On second thought, please do!”
To add to the whole terrifying creepiness of the basement, it had one of those ancient furnaces with the caste iron door you open up in front; you know the type, like the one in A Nightmare on Elm Street that was used to hide Freddy Krueger’s finger knives? I’d always have a quick peek inside to make sure no one was hiding in there, even though realistically no one could ever fit in there, except maybe a killer toy clown. And that’s the only kind there are you know. Don’t believe me? Check out spitzletheclown.blogspot.com.

Oddly enough, as I write this, and these crazy childhood memories come flooding back, I find all of these memories of the basement- good memories. I guess because, it’s my imagination that made it seem like such a creepy place in the first place. At least I hope it was just my imagination… spitzle, is that you?