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Turtle Tales
by Carol Breidenbach
My basement has disappeared!
13 March 2001
How does one lose a basement? It's something that you think impossible until it happens to you. It all started a long time ago when my husband was 10 years-old. He got a Lionel train for Christmas. The following year, his father found a used Lionel train for him at a garage sale. The two of them built a layout in his parents' basement and they shared hours of enjoyment playing with those trains.
Eventually the trains were packed away into storage and moved to our home when we got married. I had never seen the trains, only heard about them. As Lionel trains grew in popularity and value our plan was to sell them if we ran out of money putting our children through college.
When our last child left home, my husband and son, Chip, decided to build a train layout in what used to be his bedroom. It was the smallest room in the house, so they were always dreaming and plotting for a more spectacular layout.
Two years ago, when we decided to move to Wauseon, the number one requirement for my husband was a house with a large dry basement for the trains. This was followed by a nice kitchen for me. After settling in, Chip and Lenny built what I thought was the layout of their dreams. I don't know exactly how big it was, but it required three pieces of grass carpet that were each 12ft. by 9 ft. It was sheer joy to watch the two of them together sharing this hobby – then it happened!
For Christmas this year my husband wanted a saw and some plywood to enlarge the train display. We had an old ping pong table down in the basement and I thought he was going to replace it with train layout.
Lenny, Chip and their friend Chris Lee started early in the morning the Saturday after Christmas. I should have caught on when they moved three pieces of plywood into the basement. They worked all day I cooked for them, stealing some precious time in between to read.
Finally, near evening, when I noticed the extension cord from the Christmas tree was missing, I decided to check out their day's labor. I wanted to retrieve the extension cord before it became a permanent part of the train layout. When I got down the stairs, I discovered that the basement was gone! Every bit of remaining floor space was covered with train layout! They tried to convince me otherwise. My sewing corner was intact, never mind that I cut fabric on that ping pong table. The storage area was undisturbed – even if you could only access it by moving sideways and holding in your breath.
Yes the exercise equipment was there – but don't try to swing your arms when you are on the treadmill. I admit to being in a complete state of shock!
Being always a committed optimist, I reasoned – oh well – I don't have to clean the train display area. And this expansion would get me out of hosting the extended family Christmas Party graced by 12 pre-schoolers eating sloppy joes. The best part of all is that now my husband can never again complain about my tea pot collection. He probably will even have to consent to building a shelf for it.
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