OUR BASEMENT-REALLY SCARY!

     There are basements and then there was our basement. Half of it was the usual washroom where laundry was done, a shower mounted on one wall and the water pump along with the water heater. Another room which had ropes hung for clothes drying in the winter or rainy days. Also, my train set was kept there for a time. There was one other room that canned goods were stored and not much else.

     Then there was the half of that basement that you hoped each day as a kid you would make it out of alive! Let's descend.

     One door came in from the west side of our house and another came down from the main level bathroom. The main thing that first landing or level was used for was primarily an area for my dad's overalls to hang.

     Now it gets better! The narrow stairs down led to a small open area before entering the furnace room straight ahead with the washroom to the right. About halfway down the stairs, there was an open stair back plate. You always knew that there was something or someone hiding in the dark area behind the stairs ready to trip you and then God-only-knows-what after that. And, if you made it safely down without a grisly hand grabbing you, the door to the furnace room that always stood open there was a surprise awaiting for you behind it. This gets better!

     Now the real test begins. Once into the furnace room, you were greeted with the huge coal-fed monster with huge steroid induced heat pipes all leading upward that engulfed two-thirds of the room. To the back and right of the furnace was a dark vacant area that you knew something else "bad" was awaiting. To the left walking into the furnace room was a little area used to store mostly corn cobs used for stoking and harmless. 

     As a young boy, after my dad died, it was my job to go down through the winter and fill the coal stoker with small chipped coal that then was augured into the flaming furnace. Also, part of that job included  removing the  hard ash or clinkers  that were left after burning. They needed to be removed by bucket and spread out onto our driveway.

     Each evening, I would gather enough courage to open that door into the coal room to bucket up that coal. If I opened that door, I knew there was something monstrous waiting for me. It was bone chilling and heart throbbing time. Or, if not directly behind the door as I opened it then, something or someone was lying behind the coal pile that I could not see. 

     That feeling never really went away with that job. It was always amazing that my mother didn't find me some night lying there frozen in fright or at the very least sitting in a corner babbling to myself!