Grandmom’s Basement

Imagine, if you will, Christmas in a tricked-out suburban basement in Owensboro, Kentucky, 1969. My Grandmom’s house had been built for her and Grandad only five years earlier, a large home in a tasteful new neighborhood called Forest Hills. It was a brick two-story on a gracious lot, spacious, modern and immaculate. She didn’t know Mom would need to invade her home with three rowdy little girls in tow, ages 8, 7 and 3 when Dad left us there and headed to California, telling her he’d send for us. Mom was a pretty, petite 31-year-old who already looked like life had worn her down. 

Now imagine, if you can, my Grandmom… I bet you have it wrong, because she was not your typical old grandma. My Grandmom was a blonde 47-year-old that year, only sixteen years older than Mom. Cheerful, stylish and youthful, she was a real estate agent who owned her own agency. She played tennis and enjoyed a vibrant social life down at the river with Grandad and Mom and their well-lubricated friends.

You probably can imagine Grandad, because he always looked like an old man even though he was only eight years older than Grandmom, a bald, 6’4”  farmer, former professional bowler and owner of Advance Aluminum siding.

As soon as we arrived in Kentucky, my sisters and I claimed the basement as our territory. Grandmom didn’t know then that it would be years before she got her beautiful house back. But I don’t think she minded.

The stairs from the kitchen descended to a large room of rough-hewn Cedar panelling. Maybe this was supposed to be some kind of rustic Spanish look? I don’t know, but the asbestos tile might have been meant to look like orange saltillo. When you descended half-way down the stairs, you could look to your left through the wrought iron railing and see Grandad’s heavy antique pool table which was so big and heavy that it had to be lowered down there during construction before the top two stories were built. The rack on the wall beyond held the pool sticks and chalks. Posters of toreadors adorned the rough walls.

The large space was divided in half by a bench, ingeniously built in between two posts. Behind that was the big television in a wood cabinet with an antenna. I don’t know if we ever got any shows to play on it. But it had a big radio on top whose speakers unfolded when you wanted to listen. Then the living area opened up, matching barrel chairs with a turquoise, orange and gold diamond pattern on black vinyl, matching sofa and coffee table all surrounding a braided rug in front of the rough stone fireplace. Six matching barstools sat at the built-in bar with the massive orange formica top, perfect for dancing on if you squatted some.

On Christmas Eve of 1969, a Christmas tree took center stage to the left of the stone fireplace. Grandmom hosted her family Christmas party there for Grandaddy Frank, her sister and their kids, her aunt and uncle, and we were there for the first time. Turkey, green bean casserole, creamed corn, Aunt Farris’s Hummingbird cake. A few weeks earlier, Grandmom had let us help put the decorations out, the little folded cardboard Santa in his sleigh and reindeer on a bed of cotton on top of the television, the ball of mistletoe that hung from the shelf displaying Grandad’s bowling trophies. Mom had helped us paint wooden Christmas ornaments for the tree.

We were in the middle of the big family hubbub when Mom yelled to me from upstairs. 

“Your Dad is on the phone. He wants to talk to you,” she said. The radio played Robert Goulet singing about chestnuts roasting on an open fire as I bounded up the stairs.

“Hi Daddy!” I said into the phone hanging on the wall of the kitchen.

“Hi, Les! Merry Christmas, sweetie. What is Santa Claus going to bring you this year?”

“I’m not 100% sure but I asked him for an Easy Bake Oven and Stacy asked him for Operation and Hot Wheels. And probably some other stuff too. Heather might get a baby doll.”

“Uh huh,” he said.

“Is it warm there where you are?” I asked.

“It’s pretty warm here, but I’m pretty lonely too, all alone way over her in California with nobody to keep me company,” He started to get choked up.

“We’re going to see you soon,” I was trying not to cry.

Mom stood watching me closely as I tried to carry on a conversation with Dad, then finally gestured for the phone. 

“Okay, Bert, we’re going now,” she said. Her voice sounded dead. Grandmom came up the basement stairs with a tray in time to see Mom hang up and put her arm around me.

“What’s wrong?” Grandmom asked, setting her tray next to the sink.

“Daddy’s lonely without us,” I said, not succeeding in holding back the tears. Imagine the look that surely passed between them, their identical barely-pursed lips and barely-lifted eyebrows. 

“Well you can’t let Ole Santa Claus see you crying tonight,” said Grandmom, trying to be helpful. Mom must have learned the technique of distraction from her.

And soon enough, I was swept up in the excitement of Christmas Eve. I forgot to tell my Dad that I was probably going to get a tape recorder too. The sooner we could get to bed, the sooner Santa Claus would come. The basement was a disaster and Mom looked tired, haggard. But in those days, that was her typical appearance. Grandmom shooed us upstairs, telling us to get ready for bed, and since we were so excited to wear our new matching flannel nightgowns and slippers she bought us, we did as we were told for once.

We didn’t sleep. “Shhhh. Did you hear that?” I asked from the double bed Stacy and I shared. We had taken up the whole top floor, the three of us in one large bedroom and Mom in the other, a Jack-and-Jill bath joining the two. “What?” Heather asked from her toddler bed across the room. “What is that?” I whispered. “It sounds like sleigh bells. We have to be asleep!”

The three of us finally slipped out of our beds some time during the wee hours of the morning, creeping down the basement stairs. When we got half-way, we peered through the wrought iron railing, past Grandad’s pool table, past the bench, past the barrel chairs to the Christmas tree in the far corner. The big room was dark but the colored lights on the Christmas tree glowed cheerfully in the corner, illuminating a three foot high pile of treasure — games, dolls, doll houses, strollers, stuffed animals, Stacy’s huge Hot Wheels racetrack already set up, boxes and bags. Pink and beige ruled and the smell of plastic was the harbinger of the joy to come.

“Mom! Mom! Santa came,” we whispered, trying to wake her. “You gotta get up.”

“Okay, stay here,” she said. “Let me get downstairs.”

By the time they yelled up the stairs that we could come down, Mom and Grandmom were sitting on the sofa in their robes, coffee mugs in hand waiting for us to come to the basement and claim our piles of booty.

Imagine, if you will, three rambunctious little girls squealing while tearing into their piles of Mattel products with abandon, tiring of their own toys in a few minutes, then grabbing their sister’s favorite one. An argument ensued and Mom had to set down her coffee to break up the kicking fight that started. 

“You girls need to go back to bed,” said Grandmom.

We didn’t know about the odds Mom had to overcome to cobble together a Christmas celebration for us or that we’d never spend another Christmas with our Dad. The preceding six months, Stacy, Heather and I were all a little bit lost, a little bit confused, a little bit sad and we didn’t even know exactly why. Mom didn’t know how to deal with her own feelings, much less how to help three little girls. And Grandmom swallowed her own emotions and focussed on giving us all a safe landing. We didn’t realize that Grandmom and Grandad had Mom’s back, forming a three-man team who managed to provide us with the safety to remain innocent. That protection didn’t work forever, but on Christmas morning of 1969, they made magic happen for us down there in Grandmom’s basement.