I helped Eddie down the steps to the basement at my parents’ house. He wanted to find the toys.
While he chose dinosaurs and swords from the toy area, I wandered into my brothers’ old room–the cave as it’s called now because of the dark paneling, dark carpet, and just darkness of being in the basement.
This room has a closet. It’s one of those under-the-steps-so-the-ceiling-is-awkward kind of closets. To utilize the most space, in front of you are two hanger bars (tall and short) and to the left is a bunch of shelves.
There used to be toys–old school Little People– on those shelves, so I opened the door to peek and suddenly the smell of my childhood filled my memory.
It smelled like wood and carpet and toys.
Like children and games.
It smelled like being seven.
My brother and I would open that closet and take everything out one-by-one: the airport and plane, the farm, the school, the town, the bag of people and vehicles, and the box of blocks my dad made.
One would get charge of the school, the other the farm. One would take ownership of the airport, the other the town.
That was fair.
Each person and vehicle and animal would get set in a long row on my brother’s thick, brown carpet. Somehow we would determine who picked first.
Each person, vehicle, and animal would get chosen individually.
Like picking teams in gym class.
That was fair.
We would then lay out each block my dad had cut and sanded for us and choose one by one.
That was fair.
After the toys were divided up we would take our stash to the family room where the carpet was laid out in a square pattern that we used as roads.
We would argue over the prime locations for house building.
There would be disagreement over whether it was logical for the downtown to be on a mountain (the fireplace) or not.
Someone would call someone else’s house construction dumb.
Maybe a car would fly through the air.
Eventually it would all get set up.
And then we would be sick of it.
It would all have to get put away, but not before showing mom. And then later, dad.
And some begging to keep this masterpiece of a town up for ever and ever.
Eventually each piece would be picked back up–each of us in charge of our “picks”.
Because that is fair.
There aren’t any Little People in that closet anymore; my mom has them out where my son can find them.
As I gently closed the closet door and walked back out to the family room, I wondered if my son could smell what I could smell.
I wondered if the scent of Grandma and Grandpa’s basement will fill his memory as a happy time of dividing toys and setting up cities and letting his imagination create mountains and roads.
I hope so.
It’s only fair.
