Shelter From the Storm

Before I continue with my first grade misadventures I thought I'd talk about one of the really cool features of the house in Lakeshire. Here's another picture of it taken around Christmas time:


The house had a full basement, and under one end was a large room we called the "rathskeller". It had a fireplace, wood paneling, couches and tables, a piano and a large antique bar (with mirror and cabinets behind it). And the ceiling was made of steel reinforced concrete (a good thing because the garage was over part of it).
That room was one of the main reasons we bought the house. My mother was scared to death of tornadoes (a regular occurrence in that part of the country) and the rathskeller was pretty much storm proof. (It was also a great place to entertain and just hang out.)

When a storm was brewing at night my mom seemed to sense it and she'd wake us kids up and take us down to the rathskeller. She'd always try and get dad to come down too but he mostly ignored her.
I remember one night (when dad decided to stay upstairs) a nasty storm suddenly hit (high winds, hail, rain, thunder, lightning). And we heard this "thump, whack, thump" from the basement stairs and a few seconds later dad came staggering into the room with this big red lump on his forehead - he had hit his head on the ceiling jumping down the stairs...

I also remember when the tornado hit the Forest Park area of St. Louis in 1959 (killing 21). A couple of days afterward we went to visit Aunt Aggie (who lived in that area) and drove around a bit. I couldn't believe it. Many of the streets were still blocked by trees. It tore most of the roof off of the Checkerdome (arena) and damaged the roof of the Basilica Cathedral. But the thing that really stuck in my mind was the sight of a 4-story apartment building with one entire wall gone - you could see into all the bathrooms and bedrooms - and the furniture was intact - I just couldn't see how that was possible... No wonder my mother was so scared...

And I'll close with a couple of more "rathskeller" memories:
One day I was down there with the 'unholy trinity' - my big sister, Sandy Pullman and Debbie Wester - and I heard a loud bang. I looked over and saw the antique bar (about 4ft tall and 6 ft wide) lying 'face down' on the floor... My sister and Debbie were standing there looking dumbfounded... And Sandy was nowhere to be seen...
I was about to ask where Sandy went when I heard a faint "Help!!!" from under the bar. Now, that thing was impossibly heavy - the 3 of us kids couldn't budge it. Luckily, Sandy had ended up in a hollow under there or she might have not survived... By the time we got mom and dad down there and lifted the bar enough to extricate her the poor girl had been trapped under it for at least 5 minutes with a broken arm. Of course, my parents insisted on paying the medical bills (this was before neighbors ever thought of suing each other) and the girls never did adequately explain how the heck it happened...

And finally. The rathskeller had an outside door and our retriever Bozo had figured out how to herd rabbits into the stairwell. He never tried to catch them. He seemed to enjoy just sitting at the top of the stairs watching them run around and slam their heads into the walls. And I was the one who usually ended up having to go down and 'catch and release' the things.
A couple of notes about wild rabbits - a lot of people don't know that they can scream. If you ever grab hold of one you will find out. It's very unnerving... And you will also learn just how hard they can kick :-)