In the Basement

So I've avoided this long enough, it's time to get to it. Andy here with my official basement lovefest post. I don't know why, but I love having a basement. Basements are cool. They're dark, damp, kind of creepy. What's not to love? It was one of my few must have items while we were looking for a house. And now that I have a basement of my very own, I find myself down there with surprising frequency, and usually hanging out for longer than necessary in spite of there not really being anything to do down there. So here it is, a virtual tour of our basement:

The graffiti wall is a nice starting point, as it really grabs your attention when you first go down. The only things dated on there are from '93, and as basement graffiti trivia revealed, there was some Terre Haute connection. The only other clue to the motives of those who did this is that they seem to be huge Brady Bunch Fans.

The basement also contains an auxiliary refrigerator, which is something I've thought was a good idea for quite some time. I fill the bottom with beverages (of course beer, but also coke, sasparilla, poweraide, San Pelle-what?, etc.) and Elizabeth fills the top with tomato sauce. This leaves the upstairs fridge free of overcrowding. It's the perfect set up. The second fridge was a welcomed and unexpected perk of this house.

Next in the basement is the discovery I made a couple of days after we lived here. There is a "secret" section of the basement that revealed itself when I lifted a pegboard panel that I noticed was hinged. Behind this panel was an amateur shooting range! There is a can on a string that is on a pulley leading to a metal background about 20 feet away. Elizabeth finds this kind of creepy, but I find it mostly fascinating. It seems like the previous several owners of the house must not have realized this was here. The Vernors ginger ale can on the pulley looks like it could be from the 80s, and I found a metal box right by the shooting range that contained some random things that appear to have belonged to a high school kid who lived in the house around 1960. Among the items are the box for a nuclear power plant model-kit, the January 1960 issue of Sports Afield Magazine, a whiffle ball box. But the prize items are a copy of the Handbook For Pupils of Broadripple High School, last revised, 1957. I have yet to go through it very closely, but I do plan on reading through it at some point. Also in the box were a couple of art projects where he appeared to be designing record covers for (presumably?) fictitious albums. Our favorite is Themes From Horror Movies.

There is, perhaps, more to tell of the Haverford basement, but this post has grown tiresome and must be stopped. Until next time!