The Basements

What is it with me and basements?  They even figure into my birth story!  The story goes that my mom was in labor, and my dad made her stop at the church (where he was a pastor there, of course)before heading to the hospital.  She was a little flabbergasted, but went into the church basement where there was a surprise baby shower waiting for her.  I guess it scared her out of her labor pains and she stayed at the shower.  Maybe she thought it was a false alarm because she wasn't due to have me for another month anyway, so she and Dad just went home after the shower.  The car was acting up and since, in those day, car engines had about four parts, he and my future Godfather decided to take it apart in the drive-in basement.  Just when they had pulled out all four parts, my mom realized that she needed a ride to the hospital after all.  Timing is everything!


I don't remember that basement, but I remember the one in Godfrey, because I fell down the steps going down there once. I tipped over my blanket that I took everywhere like Linus.  I called it my blanken and I think I eventually ate the parts that didn't disintegrate on touch, but it was long enough at that time for it  to trip me.  I obviously survived with no discernible closed head injury.  I probably didn't go very far, but when you're two feet tall, four steps seem as tall as the empire state building!  I also remember the big (to me ) drain hole in the middle of the floor.  It terrified me because I was sure that it ate some of my toys at night and whatever lived in there was probably responsible for tripping me!  I had at least one bad dream about being sucked down, never to see the light of day again!

The tiny bedroom house had a finished basement and a subbasement.  It was either very small and that's why I remember that it was very small, or it was big and I was too worried that I would find a scary drain hole so I just never explored!

You heard about the big house scary basement, which didn't have drain hole.  Bur it had a meat hook which was way scarier! And now we get to the parsonage basement. 

The basement was unfinished, of course.  This was long before any ideas of a glorious mancave.  It had a man cave, alright, but glorious it was not.  At one point, I thing someone tried to make a cool teen hangout and drew a pic of Charlie Brown on the wall.  He looked a little terrified to be stuck on a craggy, damp stone surface.  Fred Flintstone would have been more at home, but even he wuld have said " Get me outta here!  This place isn't fit for a stegosaurus!"  Needless to say, the basement never got used as a mancave or a teen cave for that matter. 

But the absolute worst thing about the basement was not directly apparent until you took a big whiff.  The basement smelled of raw sewage (no shit!...pun intended).    Soon the smell was not being contained by the basement door.  It was like a no smoking area separated from a smoking area by an invisible line.  Somehow, the smoke never learned to read that it shouldn't waft across the line.  The smell just didn't seem aware that a nauseated family was trying to eat on the next level just beyond the door. 

My mom asked the former pastor's wife and previous resident, if she had noticed this smell.  She told my mom that the sewage collected in a trough in the basement, and every couple of weeks. she had flushed it out with a hose.  EWWW!  There was no way my mom was going to flush shit out of her basement with a hose.  There is enough crap to deal with as a pastor's wife without adding the indignity of sewage disposal.  So,  the plumber's were called (probably only after a church board meeting to approve the expense).  They dug up the pipes and found that they were set to run uphill.  The plumber was surprised that the house hadn't succumbed to toxic waste years earlier. 

Maybe that is why I bought a home with no basement!