AUGUST 19, 2020 – [Cont.] pretended Dad’s garden shovel was Stanley, the steam shovel in one of my Golden Books, and the wheelbarrow was a one-wheel version of my big toy dump truck. As I watched, Dad and Grandpa met two challenges with one source of dirt—what left the basement was hauled first to the front to level out the top of the steep bank over which the cabin was perched. (The dirt was held in place by an 75-foot-long stone and mortar retaining wall that Grandpa built.) Once a small front yard was created so you didn’t fall off a cliff into the lake when you stepped out the front door of the cabin, the remaining dirt from Basement No. 2 was dumped and leveled behind the garage so that the car didn’t fall off a cliff into the wooded abyss behind the cabin.
After excavation was completed, Dad spent most summer weekends and vacation time replicating the cinderblock retaining wall and concrete floor that he’d built in Basement No. 1. His work was done to perfection, though visitors would rarely see it: Basement No. 2 was used for storage, Dad’s smaller projects, and location of the cabin’s water pump and water-heater.
Basement No. 2 was finished in 1974—two years after I’d graduated from high school.
Now back to Basement No. 1 . . .
One Saturday Dad was on his hands and knees, taking measurements for a concrete form. He moved near a sturdy, steel, adjustable post holding up one end of a 6 x 6 wooden beam, which in turn, supported the entire middle of the house. He felt a gentle nudge against his back. “What in the world could that be?” Dad said as he told the story decades later. He turned slowly to see . . . it was the post!
Afraid the middle of the house was going to collapse into the pit that was to be Basement No. 1, he dashed out to where my sisters were jumping off the staircase leading to the second floor. They wanted me to emulate them, and I was about to oblige when Dad yelled, “Get out of the house—NOW!”
We skedaddled, with Mom behind us. Dad was bug-eyed with fear. He then did what every DIY man has to do—he went back into “the mine” to eliminate a potentially catastrophic hazard. He grabbed the fallen post, rapidly lowered the top plate enough so he could slip the post back under the beam, put the post on its footing, and frantically raised the plate until it met the beam. With the aid of a level he straightened the post, then tightened it into position.
We were allowed back into the house. Dad assured us that now the house “was solid.” I’d never heard the word “solid” before. It reminded me of “celery,” which Mother used on occasion to serve us peanut butter. Whenever I hear “solid,” I think of “celery,” and vice versa.
My sisters resumed their attempts to get me to kill myself by jumping off the staircase. Thanks to Dad’s quick thinking, none of us would die in a house collapsing into Basement No. 1.
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© 2020 by Eric Nilsson
