An overgrown basement foundation lurked towards the front of the property, near the main road. This is where a house was going to be built but never got completed. The area was a well-selected spot, strategically located close to the road for easy access. I'm not sure why the project was halted, but assume it had to do with the property becoming temporarily abandoned when my grandmother Gladys became ill. I can only speculate that dying of stomach cancer would halt life ambitions and drain finances previously available for building a house.

From what I remember, the house I grew up in actually used to be a pole barn that was converted into a temporary house, while the other one was being built. This ended up being where we lived during my childhood before we moved to the suburbs of Kansas City, Missouri. Because the plans of building the house stopped in the middle of construction, the basement basically became a concrete enclosed pond. Trees and bushes grew within and around it. Our well worn driveway, which was somewhere between an eight to a quarter acre of gravel, stretched beside it.

Looking at the basement from the house, its concrete perimeter was mostly hidden, overgrown with yellow honeysuckle. The smell was sweetly fragrant during the hottest part of summer. I would spend hours each year at that sprawling bush carefully plucking the elongated elegant flowers from this native plant. In my yearning to recreate aspects of my childhood, I’d love to plant this again. Unfortunately, it’s hard to find the native version anymore. You can find the incredibly invasion honeysuckle swallowing forests that can be seen from the highways. As much as I would love to have this plant growing on our new homestead, I don’t want to ruin the natural environment here.

As I assume most people who've grown up near a honeysuckle bush know, there is a sweet nectar within. At the base of the flower, where it attaches to the bush, is a small green area where, if you pinch it in just the right way, you can detach the stamine from the flower. Then, gently pull it out to coax the tiny amount of nectar onto your tongue. If you have ever tasted it, you will understand why hummingbirds and insects flock to it. The smell was so beautiful. I would carry pockets full as I trolloped all around. Sometimes a flower or two would find its way woven in my hair or tucked behind my ears like a meadow princess.

Around the perimeter were a variety of other plants. It was so long ago. Nearly 3 decades. I can't remember most of them now except that there were many small trees four to ten feet tall. Seedlings which had grown from fallen seeds from the trees within the walls. I’m assuming there were at least a few Oak, Maple, Elm, and Cypress, as many of these trees were lurking around the perimeter of our property.

There were also fruit and nut trees but I didn't pay much attention to which trees where which, except for the obvious trees which produced food. Those were easy to identify because it was a great pastime of mine to collect the edible gifts from the earth. A few small trees with thorns had beautiful red berries I was sternly warned not to eat because they were poisonous. I won't pretend I didn’t think strongly about it, though. The warning didn't 'suade me from picking them and playing with them, but ultimately I heeded advice not to eat them, like the somewhat obedient child that I was. They looked perfectly round, like little red bb gun pellets. They were solid inside and hard to crush.

On the inside of the basement were many other, more mature, trees. Much larger trees, in fact. Some were probably 10-20 years old based on their stature. The basement foundation had to have been around 8 feet deep. Those trees towered above the walls at least 20 to 30 feet. I believe this foundation was built in the 60s or 70s, so there was plenty of time for those massive trees to take root. It was a concrete enclosed wild forest by the time I was traipsing.

Although it had walls, I was never able to tell if it had a concrete or gravel floor. The bottom had island-like areas of gravel, concrete rubble, and a murky pool of standing water. Being built in that era, it could’ve had a gravel floor, likely being built primarily to function as a root cellar and storm shelter, seeing how the property had neither.

I was always told never to go near or inside of it because it was very dangerous. My childhood fear of monsters spooked me well enough it chased away any curiosity to explore the abandoned site, which sometimes looked magical, other times haunted. Other than the barn converted into a house, the cinder block enclosed well, and the old remnants of a disintegrating pigsty, the rest of the property was lush with wild plants and animals. However, the basement was being swallowed by nature over the years. During my childhood that in between stage made it seem like both an out of place man-made structure, as well as a mysterious otherworldly dimension. Like an ancient ruin from a past civilization. Abandoned to be consumed by the elements, yet with a rich history.

IMAGE 1
IMAGE 2
IMAGE 3