Oh, I loved the basement. Going down the stairs, seeing the shelves of preserved fruit and jelly in those big Mason jars. Such a lot of work, making those preserves, dipping the jars in boiling water, melting the wax to seal them, all that steam in the kitchen on a hot summer's day... but what joy in the winter to be the one who got to open that jam jar, prying the wax open with the tip of a knife, getting to lick it clean and then chew the sticky sweet wax in lieu of bubble gum.



Then at the bottom of the stairs, the coal furnace glowing. What a scary, pre-industrial era image, the iron door, the piles of coal, the dust everywhere, the crunchy floor underfoot.



There was a nook with remnant of a broken down wall in the back room where slaves had hidden in the underground railroad. There were bare lightbulbs hanging from wires. The foundation walls were old stones, all exposed, with bugs and dust. The storm door that came up by the driveway looked just like the one Dorothy goes down in the Wizard of Oz.



Today, I doubt most modern, protective parents would let a child go into such a danger trap as that basement. But it was where my imagination took flight, in the dirty dark recesses where time stood still.