water fight

It was probably not too long before Kathleen left Hickory Lane that we had a huge water fight. The sump pump hose led out to the side of the front yard, and we had created a little reservoir there so the water would not run this way and that through the yard. I don't remember how the water fight started -- maybe we were washing something outside. We used buckets and those yellow jai alai-like scoops to fling water from that pool at each other. The younger kids might have gotten into it too. The tree canopy was so complete there was always a greenish light hovering over that yard. 

Before we had the sump pump, the basement saw some memorable floods. I remember helping to pass buckets up the stairs, shin deep in water in which legos and pencils and other bits and pieces floated. After those floods, the exotic shag rug disappeared, along with the basement's air of novelty and excitement. I recall the older girls and some church friends -- it might have been a youth activity I witnessed as a 5 or 6 year old -- dancing the hustle on that shag rug. Once flooded, the basement remained in a slightly dingy and temporary state, floor stripped of tiles and things piled about. The puppet theater was used to store bulky things, its base discolored. A massive wood stove dominated one corner. Dad's desk stood opposite, stool high off the floor. An old refrigerator, painted black, was built into the wall right next to the stairs. It was still an interesting place, but not nearly so inviting as it had been. There would be no more rugs in the basement, nothing more that was cozy! 

The laundry room at least was warm, warmed by the furnace there. The sound of it starting frightened me, though, a slightly rasping sound that settled into a deep, menacing rumble. And there were shelves of paperbacks, from "None dare call it treason," a paranoid McCarthy-era warning against political deviance, to "The spy who came in from the cold," "Shane," and romance novels. The big freezer was in there, stocked full of beef for a time as we subscribed to Colorado Prime. Dad's "dorsey bar" hung from a beam, bucket of rocks resting on the cement below, hole worn in the bottom. At first, I think Dad's desk was in the laundry room against the north wall. Later, after the ruin of the main room and the bar was carted out, he must have moved the desk out there. 

There was a mirror inset in the north wall; it would have originally served as a backdrop for the bar, probably lined with many-colored bottles. In their place was Dad's phrenological plaster head model, top broken. We used to play with the poker chips, neatly stacked in their holder with steel handle. Jed lived in that basement. That was the name we gave the ghost there. We never saw him, but the faster you ran up those stairs, the closer he got.