Basements have, in my mind, always held an element of creepiness. Growing up on the farm, our basement was concrete with a slightly uneven, heaved floor. No fond memories of it because it contained the wringer washing machine and we had to haul the dirty tubs of water up the stairs to dump outside.
Of course, then there are the dirt floor basements or cellars that always have a lingering hint of mold and mildew. Spiders and cobwebs are in their natural element. There you would also encounter the dreaded salamander. Believe me, I would rather face a tornado than sit in a cellar with the denizens of multiple legs. (Thanks, Dee, the SWJ staff learned a new word: denizens.)
Kent and Gay’s basement has given me a whole new perspective. They did it right when the house was built and allowed for multiple windows to let in the light. I have my own entrance on ground level and even a kitchen. I was adamant when I arrived that I would pay rent, but Gay came up with another solution. She preferred that I take over the cooking for the household. Finally, I am putting my recipe archives to use. (Although, I have to tone down the use of onions and spicy food.)
My first dilemma was adjusting myself to another woman’s kitchen. It’s like a game of hide and go seek. Before I finally find out where everything is located, I will no doubt wear out the hinges on the cupboard doors. One thing I did discover right away is Kent and brother David’s secret stash of mixed nuts and candy in the computer room. I imagine I would be overstepping my bounds if I padlocked it so Kent doesn’t ruin his appetite for supper.
The picture I’ve included is now my breakfast companion. I can see why clowns terrify many people, including my niece, Gena. This clown picture was one of a set that Heather bought to scare her sister. I love her sense of humor.
Anniversary wishes go out to Charlie and Myrna Knigge. I do believe it’s 55 years! Also, happy 90th birthday to Kenny Anderson! Glad to share a part in your day.
– Dee Baby

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, from Dee’s “breakfast companion.”

On Nov. 1, open enrollment for government healthcare begins, and Americans are once again free (ha, ha) to pick their health insurance.
It has become difficult for me to talk about America’s health insurance disaster without getting upset. It gets even harder every year when I open up the “premium change notice” from my insurance company, like I did this week. There has been a standard rate increase anywhere from 20 percent to upwards of 50 percent per year over the past few years since Obamacare was enacted.
I wrote an editorial in this paper back when it was first put into place, warning of the “bait and switch” we’d see as Obamacare progressed. Now that this has come to fruition, guess who’s feeling the biggest squeeze? Yep, middle class working Americans — particularly the self-insured. Many of my friends, along with myself are paying well over $10,000 per year for health insurance premiums. These people are typically healthy, young, working class families on the highest deductible plans allowed.  It’s no longer a car payment, it’s a mortgage payment. Something’s got to give.
I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of subsidizing our dysfunctional government. So what do we do about it? The change for Obamacare is not found anywhere close to the 2016 Democratic ticket. I’m not sure that true reform can be found in the Republican ticket either, but it’s most likely the best chance we’ve got for changing the current healthcare insurance situation in America.

Can or should a 15-year-old high school boy be psychoanalyzed in retrospect for weird behavior? A lot of water has gone under the bridge, details lost, and reasons not remembered. So a reader will have to consider whether the passage of 70 years might exonerate a mischief-maker of a past decade.
The setting was Forestburg High School in 1944 or 1945. The exact location was the boys’ restroom located on the ground floor between the first, second and third grade room to the east and the fourth, fifth and sixth grade room to the west. The girls’ restroom was located directly above on the second floor.
Perhaps 5-8 years prior to the deed of interest, I had discovered in my deceased grandfather’s shop a small, ancient glass jar containing black, greasy material. How I identified the unusual stuff, I don’t recall, but I learned that it was gunpowder from an older era. It appeared to be Granddad Bonney’s last stash of powder, likely from the days of his muzzle-loading rifle, circa 1885. Experimenting when my father was elsewhere, I discovered that a match would ignite a pinch of the powder into a tremendous cloud of pungent white smoke. What’s more, the explosion occurred with only a soft “poof”, quite unexpected considering the volume of smoke.
How much later it was, I don’t recall, but the bright idea came to me to take the powder to school. And again, I don’t recall when the moment of mischief changed from showing a friend what I’d found to actually having some fun with it.
Again, the setting — study hall on the second floor. With the bottle out of sight in my pocket, I walked to the front blackboard and right beside the pencil sharpener I initialed “WT” to signal that I was leaving for the restroom downstairs. It was important that with my “WT” in plain view, no other high school boy could use that restroom at the same time and upset my scheme.
On the east wall of the restroom stood two tall, flat-topped urinals, ideal for my bright idea. Secrecy was necessary for the project, so I stepped outside the series of two doors to look for intruders. The front entrance and hallway were deserted and quiet. Hurrying back inside, I extracted both bottle and matches from my pocket, removed the lid, shook out a couple teaspoonfuls on the top of one of the urinals and scratched a match. When the flame touched the powder, I was gratified to hear the expected “poof.” As the dense smoke mushroomed to the ceiling and spread toward both the stall on the far end and the door on the north end, I quickly exited the scene, secure in the thought that the two sets of doors would slow the acrid smell sufficiently for me to calmly climb the stairs and just as calmly enter the study hall to erase my initials from the blackboard.
I could imagine that the next male visitor to the restroom, be he high schooler, grade schooler or janitor, would yell “fire!” at the top of his lungs. There would be no way in which the smoke could escape from the small room and it would all be there for the next user to witness. But peace and quiet prevailed. I heard no excited discussion; I didn’t even learn who next opened the doors. It escapes me whether I was elated that my conspiracy succeeded or disappointed that I’d not caused a ruckus. Of course, my juvenile brain hadn’t planned for the horrifying judgment-day event if the superintendent had suddenly walked in! As it turned out, “all’s well that ends well.”
Now, you amateur psychoanalysts, what made a teenage twerp pull such a stunt? You men who were once boys yourselves may have a quicker answer than the generally genteel ladies. However, some 25 years later when Woonsocket sophomore and junior boys attempted to push my Volkswagen over the bridge to the island, I remembered! I got away with my prank; they almost did. Kindred spirits, I suppose.