You might have assumed, as I'm sure many people do, that people started digging basements because they wanted to have more space in which to put their stuff, or because they wanted some consistently cool place to store potatoes, onions, and other foodstuffs throughout the summer and winter. If you had assumed this you would be wrong, but as I just discovered this evening, the latter part about a cool place to put food is not too far from the truth.
No, the basement became a necessity as soon as construction techniques found a way to keep the wind and drafts out of the houses. Before this happened, huge wood stoves and fireplaces were required to keep the temperature inside the house livable because the wind would blow all of the precious heat out through the cracks in the walls so quickly. As buildings got better, and the cracks got smaller and eventually virtually disappeared, the heat stayed in the house longer. Unfortunately, however, the fireplaces did not get smaller.
One evening, a man somewhere threw one too many logs in his over-sized fireplace (if you've ever owned a wood stove, you know how difficult it can be to get it just right). The heat source in his house gradually turned from not-quite-warm-enough to let's-take-summer-vacation-in-Greenland-hot. He wanted to open a window, but the thoughts of what he had gone through, traveling up the mountain on horse and wagon with naught but an axe and faithful hound to gather the thermal life-support his family would need to get through the merciless winter made it seem a cardinal sin to let that precious warm air escape on purpose. Even opening the door to step outside for anything less important than fetching a midwife was unforgivable. It was as if he feared that letting the heat go would be giving it permission to never come back. His wife was not pregnant and the chamber pots were all empty, so the poor farmer was trapped in his mounting inferno until the logs burned down and what remaining inefficiencies in the house granted them guilty relief. The fire grew hotter and hotter, and the poor man's sanity began to leak out with the sweat gathering on his splotchy red brow. He cast his eyes about his humble two-room castle. Strewn about the abode were his wife and various children, stretched in hazy pseudo consciousness out on the ground as if having completed a marathon, and leaning against the walls of the cabin to be as far away as possible from the small star growing in the middle of the house. As he surveyed the sorrowful scene, his eyes beheld, propped up in a corner of the house, his family's salvation: a shovel.
In a frenzied rage, he grabbed the shovel and attacked the floor in that corner of the house. Making a mental note to reward whomever had so carelessly not put away the tool, he slashed through the thin wooden planks which separated him from his respite. All of the other exits were blocked, so he had only one choice -- escape through the floor. Before long, the wood was gone, shattered and crushed into countless pieces by the blunt tool, and the shovel was working its magic on what it was made for. Sweat poured from the man's face, moistening the bottom of his growing hole, but he was determined to flee before he fell victim to his unyielding foe. The dust rose and the dirt flew as the concerned family watched their father sink unnaturally quickly through the floor of the cabin. The eldest son caught his father's fever and tied a rope to the washbasin and began lowering it down into the hole and pulling it out, full of rich, cool brown soil which he dumped menacingly before of the enemy in the heart of their home. Soon there was enough room for two people in the hole, then three. As the space grew, children began dropping down through the hole in the floor armed with spoons to assist in the effort, and the sounds of scraping and coughing eventually faded, and were replaced by a comfortable, cool, silence as the farmer's family cuddled like mice in their new emergency fire shelter.
News spread quickly of this innovation, even more so after the floor of the house caved in a couple of days after the incident. The man was regarded a hero for discovering a way to legally escape the "one log too many" heat that plagues even the best practiced wood-stove operators now and again. Construction practices were once again revisited to strengthen floors so that basements could be enjoyed safely. Soon thereafter, the benefits of a root cellar and extra storage were discovered, and the popularity of the underground rooms further mounted.
Eventually, however, new developments would make the basement obsolete. Fresh vegetables could be attained from the grocery store, rental storage units solved the storage problem, and fireplaces were replaced with furnaces which proved to be much more friendly to be around.
Have a great thanksgiving, all.
-BacH
