ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

Down in the basement where I learned things

Updated on April 25, 2013

The difference between a house and a home is often called love, in mine it was work and learning.

When you fell asleep in front of a large fire, with 3 sisters playing guitar and mandolin and singing in harmony. You fell asleep good.
When you fell asleep in front of a large fire, with 3 sisters playing guitar and mandolin and singing in harmony. You fell asleep good. | Source

The first thing you noticed was a pungent pine pitch scent.

When you opened up the extra wide, extra tall oak door going down into the basement you were hit smack dab in the face with pine. What had been a coal shoot and bin we converted to a pine knot firewood storage. About 10 cords would fit down there. Pine Knots are harvested from an old forest. The are where the branches connected with the tree. Chainsaws are used but a twelve pound sledgehammer is the norm. They are taken from fallen trees where the core has already rotted. I have seen a one ounce drop of this sap burn hot for an hour. So through 300 inches of snow and a cold 5 month winter, two fireplaces help keep us warm.

In my teens There was a year or two when all three brothers would play friday night football, then head out and work a sledge hammer. and cut and haul wood for 5 hours every saturday through snow. I remember once, I had a broken nose, the eldest a broken finger and the middle a concussion. Needless to say I learned to drink beer early on.

Sometimes snakes and mice would come in with the wood.

There was a library in our basement. Scouting books and books on how things worked and chemistry books and such.
There was a library in our basement. Scouting books and books on how things worked and chemistry books and such. | Source

Our house was large -- like the Waltons. I think it was heated with steam heat radiators. About a 100 gallon boiler pushing steam through hundreds of feet.

Next to the heater was a work bench open on both sides with vices, band saws, miter saw mounts and the brightest lighting available. Concrete or dirt floors. exposed piping and electrical. Real two by eight wood and plaster and lathe surrounding us along with dirt and local rock and mortar.

This was a place where you could see how electricity could spark or turn things around in a circle. Where you could sand some wood until it had an opalescent shine that you could finish to make a trinket for mom or gal. You could put together a cool picture frame or dissect a frog or squirrel. Star charts were built here and getting over girlfriends was done here. How to use an overhead drill and how to use it as a lathe were understood by trial and error.

My brother built a volcano and my other earned an Eagle scout down here.

I must admit we had dirty books down here, covered with sawdust, dirt and sweat. They were so dirty we were not allowed to bring them up on the carpet. That was what dirty meant to us.



I seem to recall my grandpa making me building blocks down there.

Used to be dads would hand make their children toys.
Used to be dads would hand make their children toys. | Source

How do you box? And how to you build. Look mom!! All fingers.

Down in that basement you would turn on the radio and listen to Liston and later Ali.Maybe the Los Angeles rams or lakers or Dodgers. My state had no real stations for more than about 6 hours a day.

We would get Tennessee Earnie Ford and the Grand old Opera In about late youth more stations came on and Jimmy Hendrix, Elvis, and groups like the Beatles came with them.

We built things like electro magnets, stools and tables. We would fix broken stuff rather than just throw it out. We learned when to use a screw instead of a nail and a peg instead of either.

And here is an amazing factoid. None of us ever lost a single member of our body down there.

Tools are not play things and play things are not tools.

That is what old grumpy people say.

In my home we skipped over a lot of toy stages and jumped right in with real tools.

I remember when I went to middle school in shop class. They had these things called safety glasses and goggles. Wow what a concept that was. They also had safety guards on some of the power tools. And these fans that sucked the dust out of the air.

working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)