Basement Boogie

The colorful snow filled picture below looks like an accurate depiction of my friends and me in the mid-1970s. We were clean, happy, well dressed, well fed, innocent, colorful, and, above ground.

Above ground, you say?

Well, yes. The artwork captures what I think of as our 1970s above ground personae. We are so sweet! But like yin to the yang, follow us down the groove line to the boogie basement and it's all strobes and smut! Woo hoo! 

Read on!

Finished basements, in the 70s, were holy grail meccas for energetic suburban youngsters. Most of us grew up in houses built in the late 1800s in my town and our basements were damp, and heavily spidered with dirt floors, and mighty octopus furnaces. Long tentacled steel arms that scared the bejeezus out of us meant ain't nobody playing down there. Nobody. No how.

So, when you made friends with someone who lived in a pleasantly new 1950s ranch, complete with a classily paneled finished basement, it was like striking recreational gold. Normally those hipster basements had foosball tables and other Montgomery Wards catalog-related items that made leisure time extra fun. However, the basement of my preadolescent dreams also had a full sized velvety felt covered pool table, multicolored asphalt tile flooring, a 6 foot section of wall that was mirrored from floor to ceiling, a bar with 4 vinyl-seated stools upon which we were permitted to spin, a one armed bandit slot machine that took real quarters, a bomb shelter, and the "office". 

Note: The office was a space in which we were not allowed.

My friend Hailie's parents owned this home. Although Hailie seemed nonplussed by all it had to offer, I had and continue to have a special place in my grownup heart for this childhood fortress of fun. 

First, the mirrored wall and slippery floor: we would clomp down the stairs in our Thom McAnn noisy as hell clogs, then toss them off wherever they fell and lace up our rollerskates, bright white with orange wheels, for an evening of homestyle basement boogie. Hailie's Mom had super hip taste in music so we could easily hear Hot Stuff, Le Freak, and Knock on Wood, among other skating tracks, coming from the speakers upstairs and we'd glide and pose and spin in circles for hours learning how to primp and preen without parental or sibling judgement amongst those huge mirrors. I had a strobe light that I'd bring along. It was an outstanding addition but we unplugged it every hour or so because the heat coming from that thing was a fire hazard and the burnt plastic smell threated to ruin our carefree vibe. Disco Inferno! 

My go-to accessory was the feather roach clip, bought for me by my Nana, who obviously had no idea what she was starting when she gave me the two that she had thoughtfully purchased at a sidewalk craft fair outside her local DMV. I had one pink sassypants clip and a more subdued brown clip. Those fluttery embellishments were fantastic. The clip (again, Nana had no idea so please don't bust on Nana) would hold nice and tight in my hair and gave me some very early street cred with the teenagers at the local mall. Hailie and I would don rainbow hued leg warmers, plush velour v-necks, the tightest jeans we had, and said feathers and skate all night, laughing and rolling (stop harping on Nana, I mean our wheels were rolling), and enjoying ourselves immensely. 

Next, the bar and the pool table: Hailie's little brother claimed those parts of the basement for himself. He'd meander down and play pretend bartender to our roller disco using water and tall, red plastic cups and his boisterous friends would often pop in for a night of fun. They were terribly unskilled at pool and as the evening went on their shots became less about precision and more about fracas. The occasional ball would come spinning onto our roller boogie floor and we would race to scoop it up, learning how to balance while literally folding ourselves in half and reaching for the polyresin orb. Looking back, I think the boys just liked 'the Jordache look' and the look they got at our big Jordache butts when we were bent over and scooting by like that, but whatever, it was great fun and great exercise and other than the occasional snipe or jab, we all got along like peas and carrots.

The bomb shelter section of the basement was essentially empty, except for a vintage blow-mold set of disturbingly huge candles, a jolly Santa and a peppermint stick-holding snowman. 

I guess if the world is ending and the family is bunkered down it helps to have some holiday cheer; though, personally, I thought some canned veggies, flashlights, and blankets might be nice to store down there. Don't forget, this was before the age of Reagan and Gorby and we were still hiding under our desks at school a few times a year in case the Commies nuked us. Good times!

Then, there was the "office". "Don't go in the office!" Hailie's parents warned us, but really, that is basically like putting umbrellas in the office and telling The Penguin to stay out, right? You know I'm right! Rubbermaid storage boxes did not exist back then. If people needed to store their stuff, it was either on a shelf in the open, or in a cardboard box (which could get mushy depending on where and in whose basement it was being used for storage purposes), or in a safe...which some of my friend's parents had. Safes were typically in the bowels of closets and usually contained guns and things we felt a little scared of, so we didn't mess with those.

So, the "office" consisted of a long, hand-hewn wooden workbench, a modern metal desk, shelves, a very lengthy fluorescent overhead light, and stacks upon stacks of loose *** magazines. Magazines, you say? What sort? 

Well, here's where the 'stay out of the office' bit starts making sense. Hailie's Dad was a collector of Oui magazines. At first blush, they look a little like a Cosmopolitan...attractive gal on the front in something sort of revealing, but altogether classy. Then you open it up and umm...well, sistah, what have we here?

In defense of Oui, (and Hailie's Dad, obviously) there were some decent articles and the art was quite tasteful. These ladies were much classier (and far more attired) than what kids are able to access in a click today. I can recall maybe a sweater without pants or pants without a sweater, but nothing that made us think anything but to peek down our own individual shirts and say "Not happening." 

One of the magazines showcased a ton of sportscars and a conversation with Robin Williams, with whom Hailie and I were both totally interested at the time. I mean who doesn't want to read about Mork? So, after looking at Porsches and reading Robin's inane answers to the interviewer's inane questions, Hailie and I started thinking about her kid brother. In a stealthily devised plan, we strategically placed magazines on the heap in a sort of smut Jenga to see if her brother was hip to this room of sexy cheesecake. As you can imagine, it only took two days to find that our carefully orchestrated porno pile had been moved around. One afternoon while we were all upstairs hairdressing with the Play Doh Fuzzy Pumper barbershop we made reference to what we'd found and done and his plastic scissors stopped, mid slice. Then he mushed the bearded fellow's head into the kitchen table and stomped off. We never spoke of it again. 

I know you have 70s basement memories to share. Please add them in the comments if you have time. This will also help me learn how comments work. Thanks for the love!

***pun intended

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