Censors rarely give reasons other than "it offends me (or the "community")". Personally I'm offended by censors but they're still around. And growing, I think, a situation that also offends me.
We also had a basement, which we accessed on the outside via a large wooden door. It housed the oil furnace. The other most interesting aspect was a small step up area that led to some shelves under outside glass, almost like a mini greenhouse. My father loved his garden and the basement area was where we grew tomatoes, peppers, eggplant from seed. Burpee seeds, chosen from their colorful catalog. The little plants were in peat pots and eventually they were transferred to a cold frame where they were hardened off before planting. I helped. Good memories.
when I was young I too enjoyed a forey down in the basement wandering through the stuff my parents saved for many of the same reasons as your parents. My dad bordered on being a horder so maybe our cellar was a tad more stuffed than yours. But the rub is that apon my parents death my wife an I had 2 cellars to clean our prior to the sale of both our humble small suburban house in N. Quincy, Ma and our family summer retreat cottage in Falmouth, MA. What a job it was hauling that stuff from basement to back yard to dumpsters for either my delivery to the junk yard or a hiried dumster company. The child hood memories were warmly rekindled reading this article but my adult memories of junk removal take me to the dark side.
I certainly remember those "torpedo-shaped" Electrolux vacuums, but with my Mennonite upbringing, I never thought of them as torpedos. :-) Our basement was a bit too damp for storing much of anything. We had a small, gambrel house turned shed that had been moved off a 40-acre tract on our farm to just behind the old homestead house where I am told some great x something lived in their old age. After they died, it became a chicken coop upstairs and shed downstairs. By my time the upstairs was the junk collection space and the downstairs a workshop. It wasn't that we didn't have chickens anymore. "Get big or get out" drove my dad to build a second and third floor in our large midwestern barn which held 3,000 chickens. Cattle and hogs below; chickens above. I moved a lot of poo-poo!
Nice. I feel lucky to have had grandmothers still alive in my childhood who had raised their families during the Depression. They knew how to grow food and how to cook from scratch. Thanks for stirring up some memories.
Thanks for sharing. I've submitted a poem or two over the years with zero success. My poem, "The Refugee," as I have been told by others including the editor of the book in which it is published, is pretty powerful, but even that didn't get so much as a ranking in the submissions. When I read what does win such things, I just scratch my head and think of the banality of what passes as "winners" these days.
My basement memory is of glass jars filled with hardware, and none of it sorted just hundreds of nuts, bolts, washers and screws so that any small job around the house could be handled, provided one had enough time to sort through the multitude to find the right item.
The other thing I remember about the basement is that it naturally became our shelter, whether for tornados (very few if any as I recall) or nuclear war. As for the latter, during the Cuban Missile Crisis my father outfitted the shelter with cans of brown bread, something I had not seen before. We never ate them and I suspect that they were discarded when the danger passed. You can still get them. I may get a can and see what it takes like. They even have them with raisins.
Whip an egg into that white bread/milk/sugar/raisins & spices mix and bake it! What we did with the ends of French bread at a Cajun restaurant. Bread pudding...
When in 1981 my wife and I moved into a house built in 1953, we discovered in the basement large cans (10 gallons) of drinking water dating to the fallout shelter days. We still have them. Why? They make good legs for a laundry bench. I think people were naive in those days to believe that in a few weeks or months everyone could safely come out and things could get back to normal.
That brown bread in a can with raisins is not bad, I've eaten it when camping and not able to make bread due to weather, also my parents gave it to us a few times when the kitchen wasn't useable at our grandparents summer cottage. You want a SCARY food, they also make canned WHOLE CHICKENS.
Bill, I feel like we're living parallel lives. In addition to sharing many of the same concerns on Substack, we're both spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about the basement.
Re:The Electrolux "torpedo" vacuum cleaner, pedigreed Swedish dachshund of the dirt suckers?
They used to have lifetime warranties. My mom tried to vacuum the ashes out of a fireplace when I was a child, sucked up charcoal with live embers too and with forced air that vacuum cleaner bag became an inferno! Took the scorched machine to a dealer, they gave her a new one-
Not any more, just a 10 year warranty on parts now.
Those with Depression-era upbringings had nothing on my grandmother. She was born in 1892 in the English Midlands, one of 18 (!) children. NOTHING was ever wasted in their family, and her frugality was an example for me. I tend to save everything, too, "just in case." Fortunately, that fits perfectly with my "reuse, recycle" mindset.
The home my husband and I live in was built in 1915, and still has many remnants from that time. We converted our basement into a family room, but my husband’s workshop contains pieces of lumber, metal, and all kinds of other assorted jun---er, useful materials and objects. It all comes in very handy for maintenance and repairs, all of which he does himself.
I grew up reading about adventures and club meetings in basements, dungeons and attics but, sadly, have never had one. Just not the typical South African house.
Nature may abhor homogeneity, but we products of nature demand it far too often and our institutions reflect that unachievable goal.
When I was in the Army I made a comment about using a food tray in place of a SAPI plate-perhaps those "torpedoes" would be a nice addition to a submarine?
On a different subject: ColdType, a publication that sometimes carries my writing, has recently been banned by Facebook, no specific reason given.
Check out the latest issue here, and consider subscribing:
https://www.coldtype.net/Assets23/PDFs/ColdType260August2024.pdf
Censors rarely give reasons other than "it offends me (or the "community")". Personally I'm offended by censors but they're still around. And growing, I think, a situation that also offends me.
@Bill Astore
Article on page 26 of August Cold Type is QUITE sufficient reason to deplatform, even without the "we are all fried" cartoon. Thanks for that link...
I've downloaded it for reading later. Ta.
We also had a basement, which we accessed on the outside via a large wooden door. It housed the oil furnace. The other most interesting aspect was a small step up area that led to some shelves under outside glass, almost like a mini greenhouse. My father loved his garden and the basement area was where we grew tomatoes, peppers, eggplant from seed. Burpee seeds, chosen from their colorful catalog. The little plants were in peat pots and eventually they were transferred to a cold frame where they were hardened off before planting. I helped. Good memories.
when I was young I too enjoyed a forey down in the basement wandering through the stuff my parents saved for many of the same reasons as your parents. My dad bordered on being a horder so maybe our cellar was a tad more stuffed than yours. But the rub is that apon my parents death my wife an I had 2 cellars to clean our prior to the sale of both our humble small suburban house in N. Quincy, Ma and our family summer retreat cottage in Falmouth, MA. What a job it was hauling that stuff from basement to back yard to dumpsters for either my delivery to the junk yard or a hiried dumster company. The child hood memories were warmly rekindled reading this article but my adult memories of junk removal take me to the dark side.
great read...thanks for sharing.
I certainly remember those "torpedo-shaped" Electrolux vacuums, but with my Mennonite upbringing, I never thought of them as torpedos. :-) Our basement was a bit too damp for storing much of anything. We had a small, gambrel house turned shed that had been moved off a 40-acre tract on our farm to just behind the old homestead house where I am told some great x something lived in their old age. After they died, it became a chicken coop upstairs and shed downstairs. By my time the upstairs was the junk collection space and the downstairs a workshop. It wasn't that we didn't have chickens anymore. "Get big or get out" drove my dad to build a second and third floor in our large midwestern barn which held 3,000 chickens. Cattle and hogs below; chickens above. I moved a lot of poo-poo!
Nice. I feel lucky to have had grandmothers still alive in my childhood who had raised their families during the Depression. They knew how to grow food and how to cook from scratch. Thanks for stirring up some memories.
Thanks for sharing. I've submitted a poem or two over the years with zero success. My poem, "The Refugee," as I have been told by others including the editor of the book in which it is published, is pretty powerful, but even that didn't get so much as a ranking in the submissions. When I read what does win such things, I just scratch my head and think of the banality of what passes as "winners" these days.
My basement memory is of glass jars filled with hardware, and none of it sorted just hundreds of nuts, bolts, washers and screws so that any small job around the house could be handled, provided one had enough time to sort through the multitude to find the right item.
Same, Clif! My dad had those jars, too!
My dad was born in 1932, and did the exact same thing. I've had to toss bags and bags of it out. Only some stuff gets donated, unfortunately.
The other thing I remember about the basement is that it naturally became our shelter, whether for tornados (very few if any as I recall) or nuclear war. As for the latter, during the Cuban Missile Crisis my father outfitted the shelter with cans of brown bread, something I had not seen before. We never ate them and I suspect that they were discarded when the danger passed. You can still get them. I may get a can and see what it takes like. They even have them with raisins.
Bread in a can scares me almost as much as nuclear war. :-)
Maybe they help avoid radiation sickness. That might be a good marketing line.
It'd be hard to know whether you were opening a can of bread, or a can that held your effluence after eating a can of bread.
But ultra processed white bread, raisins, brown sugar and cinnamon boiled in milk is a treat.
Whip an egg into that white bread/milk/sugar/raisins & spices mix and bake it! What we did with the ends of French bread at a Cajun restaurant. Bread pudding...
When in 1981 my wife and I moved into a house built in 1953, we discovered in the basement large cans (10 gallons) of drinking water dating to the fallout shelter days. We still have them. Why? They make good legs for a laundry bench. I think people were naive in those days to believe that in a few weeks or months everyone could safely come out and things could get back to normal.
Come out to the planet of the apes.
@Alex
That brown bread in a can with raisins is not bad, I've eaten it when camping and not able to make bread due to weather, also my parents gave it to us a few times when the kitchen wasn't useable at our grandparents summer cottage. You want a SCARY food, they also make canned WHOLE CHICKENS.
As long as they're not still alive.
Bill, I feel like we're living parallel lives. In addition to sharing many of the same concerns on Substack, we're both spending an inordinate amount of time thinking about the basement.
I enjoyed this, thanks!
@Bill Astore
Re:The Electrolux "torpedo" vacuum cleaner, pedigreed Swedish dachshund of the dirt suckers?
They used to have lifetime warranties. My mom tried to vacuum the ashes out of a fireplace when I was a child, sucked up charcoal with live embers too and with forced air that vacuum cleaner bag became an inferno! Took the scorched machine to a dealer, they gave her a new one-
Not any more, just a 10 year warranty on parts now.
Great story! Those old torpedoes were built to last. They might even survive a nuclear blast. :-)
Those with Depression-era upbringings had nothing on my grandmother. She was born in 1892 in the English Midlands, one of 18 (!) children. NOTHING was ever wasted in their family, and her frugality was an example for me. I tend to save everything, too, "just in case." Fortunately, that fits perfectly with my "reuse, recycle" mindset.
The home my husband and I live in was built in 1915, and still has many remnants from that time. We converted our basement into a family room, but my husband’s workshop contains pieces of lumber, metal, and all kinds of other assorted jun---er, useful materials and objects. It all comes in very handy for maintenance and repairs, all of which he does himself.
I grew up reading about adventures and club meetings in basements, dungeons and attics but, sadly, have never had one. Just not the typical South African house.
Nature may abhor homogeneity, but we products of nature demand it far too often and our institutions reflect that unachievable goal.
When I was in the Army I made a comment about using a food tray in place of a SAPI plate-perhaps those "torpedoes" would be a nice addition to a submarine?
In the 1970s, my dad charged $105 a month to a tenant who lived on the 2nd floor. How absurdly cheap that sounds today, 50 years later!