MEMORIES PT26

Dad did a lot of work on our house on Bicknell Hill Rd. A lot of it was landscaping,
like planting two weeping willow trees on the side lawn by the driveway and shrubs
and rhododendrons along the front of the house. Mom wanted a bigger set of steps
leading up to the front door so Dad made them out of concrete. He also made a
cement patio behind the back porch When Phil came along my room became his
room.By that time Dad had enclosed the back porch, putting up a  front and side
wall and the back wall was a huge sliding glass door. Dad was working in the
glass repair and installation business so he got it at a discount, along with the n
louvre windows he put in the front wall. I slept out there for one summer while
he worked on the big project,

This was the downstairs bedroom/playroom. He framed it and put up a plywood
wall. There was a bar underneath the stairs.and my bed was built into the wall on
the other side of the room. That was my room for thje rest of the time we lived at
that house and it was pretty cool, except for one problem.

You see, the area where our house was built had a high water table and the soil
was made up of a lot of clay. So every time it rained, water came into the cellar.
Most times it didn’t reach over close to my bed but a few times I got up in the
morning into a puddle of water. Dad tried to solve the problem by breaking a
hole in the floor over by the washing machines and putting in a sump pump
which worked most of the times. Of course the hole later became the hiding
place of a bunch of toads from Phil’s terrarium who escaped after his the
terrarium was smashed, so some nights I fell asleep to their croaks.

The worst basement floods happened to take place on Sunday nights when
a particular program aired, and my Mom was sure it had to be a curse. Of
course, “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” was a pretty horrid program but
I doubt it could have caused cellar flooding.

It couldn’t right?

((388 words))

Written for the Family History Writing Challenge