Going to the Basement
In 1939 I started to school in a brand
new building, Fayetteville Grammar School, across the
street from where I lived. The old school had burned the
year before and they had built a new school on the same
site. The old school had been a two story building with
restrooms in the basement. Two things that country children
knew nothing about were restrooms and basements. Only a few
prominent families in Fayetteville had inside plumbing and
only one house had a basement. The only place most children
had seen an inside toilet or a basement was at school and
“toilet” and “basement” became synonymous.
The new school had only one floor and the restrooms were no
longer in the basement, but I soon found out, watching the
older kids, that if you wished to go to the restroom, you
should hold up your hand and ask, “May I go to the
basement?” I was almost in high school before I learned
that going to the basement was not the same as going to the
restroom.
These days, most buildings have inside plumbing and many of
them have basements. I have a basement in my home but most
of the time I use the upstairs.