The Basement Transformation That Helped Shape My World
An early memory from a three-year-old's new home in PA.
When I was young, I loved baby dolls. They were very sweet to me and I enjoyed being their protector. Several Christmases I got a new baby to care for. One year when I was a little older, I received a Baby Alive doll. She came with a pink plastic, divided bowl where I mixed her powdered food into flavors like Cheery Cherry, Bitey Banana, and Delicious Lime. That food wasn't cheery or delicious. It was nasty. (I may have tasted it a few times! I mean, you can't feed your baby something without first tasting it yourself.) After feeding her that gelatinous goo, she needed a diaper change. Looking back, it was pretty weird. Probably a little creepy. And actually that is the last doll I remember receiving as a gift.
The other day I was thinking about when my family moved to our new home in Pennsylvania in 1975. I was nearly four years old. I think my earliest memory is from when I walked into the basement of that house. The previous owners did not depart under good circumstances, and apparently while they lived there they didn't do anything to maintain the basement. My dad says, "It was a wreck." My mom's recollection is a little more blunt: "It was disgusting and worth a good cry."