The Cellar

It was dark and smelly. The cobwebs decorated this horrible place from top to bottom. The creatures that made the webs were all over the cellar. The cobwebs stuck to my hair and my clothes. I spent the majority of my time swatting them away from me.
The foundation was made of large old rocks, very little cement was left holding the rocks together. The floor was dirt, which the mice left their tracks in.
The cellar was a modern day “Spook House.” When my mother would ask me to go to the cellar to get a jar of vegetables or fruit, it would take all I had in courage to go down there. There was one little window that had never been washed. It let in only a little light. There was no electricity to the cellar. The steps going down there were steep and wobbly.
I think of that cellar especially the other day, when my daughter sent me pictures of her basement with new furniture and curtains and carpeting. What a difference in what her children will remember and what I remember.
In our cellar was shelf after shelf filled with hundreds of jars full of vegetables of fruit that my mother had canned. On the floor, yes the floor, were crocks of preserved meat. The fat had been rendered or cooked to get the lard to liquid. My mother would fry the pork chops and place row after row of chops in the crock. Each layer had lard poured over them to “preserve” them. They did not spoil. The cellar was cool all year long. The lard, however, did the preserving. When lard spoils it is called rancid.
When I got a little older, she canned the beef and pork in the pressure cooker. There was never anything better to eat than canned meat. The jars had chunks of beef and broth that made a wonderful stew and gravy. Those were the good old days; however, I do not miss the cellar.