This is the latest in a new series with which I'm trying to reinvigorate the DaveTronik 2000 blog. In these posts, I will write about an item or items currently stored in the unfinished side of my basement. Many of them have been stashed in boxes for decades, waiting for this moment.
Four posts into this new series, I feel the need to talk etymology. When I was a kid, my family used the word "cellar" to refer to the lowest level of our house -- where we stored toys, sports equipment, tools, old furniture, my rock collection (!) and my dad's boxes of stuff from his Army hitch in Europe (some items from which will show up in this series). The cellar was also where our oil burner dwelled, alongside spiders and other creepy crawlers.
Nowadays, I call that place in my own home the basement. I use the same word to name the subterranean room in my mother's house, where she has lived for the past 15 years or so. So what is the difference between a cellar and a basement? "While both are rooms that are located below or partially below the ground level, they serve different purposes," say the experts at Complete Basement Systems. "By definition, a basement is the floor of a residence or building entirely or partly located below ground level. A cellar, on the other hand, is a room below the ground level used as a storage area."
It seems to me that a basement is where normal people store their junk, maybe set up a pool or ping pong table and a laundry room, while a cellar is where serial killers stash bodies, marvel at their antique medical equipment and set up industrial-strength drains under their work sinks that can handle a LOT of blood.
OK, now that we've got our terminology straight, let's talk about this:
When I was a young lad, I loved this kitty cat.
I think.
Back then, it was soft and cuddly and I snuggled in bed with it.
Probably. I honestly have no memory of doing so, but considering the fact that I'm 58 years old and still have this stuffed animal among my possessions, it must have been important to me. I don't have any other stuffies from when I was a kid.
Today, it is stiff like a taxidermy model, and dirty and unloved and I don't care about it at all.
Well, but that's not true, is it? I've considered tossing it into the trash over the years, but I haven't been able to bring myself to do that. What am I afraid of? Do I believe this hardened little feline's soul will come back to haunt me? Am I afraid of throwing away a symbol of my childhood? Am I concerned it will claw its way out of the Pet Sematary, drag itself through the graveyard and across busy highways to find me and kill me?
This kitty -- I don't recall if it ever had a name or gender -- doesn't trigger fond childhood memories of any sort. Did I cuddle with it when I was scared by thunderstorms? No idea. Did I give it a voice and a personality to keep me company when I was bored and alone? I don't think so. Did I gather up other cats, both stuffed and live, and juggle them along with my favorite fake pet? Certainly not.
Who gave it to me? My parents? My Grandma Jo? Grandma and Grandpa Bogert? Did it come off a hot tin roof?
And why did that person or persons consider that this little white cat was a good gift for me? Why not a dog? Or a teddy bear? Or a Sasquatch?
Don't get me wrong: I imagine that when I was quite young, I really loved that cat. Probably petted it, pretending it was real and that it loved me. But I ask you, then, why isn't that cat in the picture below, which features me (left) and my older brother, Steve, and three stuffed animals, none of which are the cat in question.
Hmm.
Anyway, when I was 5 or 6, we got a dog. A real one. A puppy, actually. And it was a little cuter and way more interactive than my precious little puddy tat. I definitely talked to that dog, Lucky, when I was down. I absolutely comforted him when he would cower behind the oil burner when a summer thunderstorm swept through our suburban neighborhood. And I loved to play with him in the house, and outside in piles of leaves my family would rake up for him every fall.
But since we didn't enlist a taxidermist when Lucky died in 1986, I don't have him in a box in my basement. But I have my ratty old cat, who exists these days only to make me feel bad about dragging it through my life, stuffed into a tomato box that I grabbed from the produce department where I worked when I was in high school and college.
Poor cat.
I don't even remember how long I've been stashing you in that box, along with a mess of baseball cards, Mardi Gras beads, old coin wrappers, two canvas bank deposit bags and the cap and gown from my college graduation (!). Doesn't matter. What matters is that you're the oldest thing I own that was only ever mine.
For those of you who prefer the word "cellar":
For those who argue that "basement" is the proper term:
